At the 1946 AQHA Convention, Raymond Hollingsworth talked to friends about his plans for a Quarter Horse magazine, and he just happened to meet newly elected AQHA Second Vice President Robert Hooper. When AQHA President Albert Mitchell made known his wishes to hire a full-time executive secretary for the Association, Hooper told him about a dynamic young man from Amarillo he had met, whose name was Raymond Hollingsworth. Mitchell hired the young man as AQHA secretary-treasurer, authorized him to move the Association to Amarillo, and instructed him to begin operating it like a business. He also told him to begin planning for a monthly AQHA magazine.
Once Raymond went to work for AQHA, he discovered there was a huge backlog of registrations pending and, with the war over and gasoline no longer being rationed, he had to get inspectors on the road to inspect horses for registration. In addition, there was the problem of finding office space, but he remedied that by leasing half of a small building on 10th Street west of downtown Amarillo. The other half housed a liquor store.
In 1948, when things had leveled out at the Association and he was ready to launch a magazine, he first had to come up with a new name. A rival Quarter Horse association–the National Quarter Horse Breeders Association–had been formed by then, and it was publishing a magazine called The Quarter Horse, which was Raymond’s original choice. Not discouraged, he met again with his advertising and printing friends and they came up with the name The Quarter Horse Journal.
