Well, the Hunter Tour was started by Susan Dasher, because in the summer of 1993, several articles in billiard magazines were questioning why there was such an uneven participation of women in tournaments across Texas. Susan wrote the following article in response to why there was so little women in tournaments. Little did she know that speaking out for women pool players in this article, set her mind a racing and set out her reasons for starting the Hunter Tour.

From August 1993, quoting Susan Dasher in the American Cueist:
"Call it emotion, call it anger, call it just and attitude; but whatever characterization you use, there is a new cohesiveness and aggressiveness among the women playing pool in Texas. The phenomena may be occurring elsewhere, but this writer's information base does not yet stretch much beyond the Southwest. Responses to the request in last month's column for an explanation of the . uneven participation of women in tournaments indicated that the catalyst for the unrest is gender based discrimination. The inequality generally takes the form of unequal money and patronizing attitudes from tournament directors. In Texas, unless a woman owner of woman sponsor intervenes, the woman can expect to receive little attention, much less money added and an extremely cavalier back-of-the-hand approach to tournament direction. Matches are not announced, women players are the butt of snide remarks and questions are met with eyes rolled back and snickers. Not always, but too often.

The most recent event in Austin, TX, the 20th Annual Texas State 9-Ball Open, give testimony to the difference a woman makes. Room co-owner and manger Lynn Aderhold actively promoted the women's side of the event, the 32 field filled and $1000 was added to the women's event instead of the usual $500. Another jewel in this awakening is the $3,500 added San Antonio Rose being held in October at Galaxy Billiards, NE in San Antonio. Thanks for this all-womens event goes to Susan Dasher, Julie Hilliker and that great lover of women pool payers, room owner Don Hoppe.

In Texas, these events, and the Women's' Amateur Eightball Championship, stand alone. The indifferent or very different treatment accorded the women in the McDermott tour has the predictable result of diminished participation, bitterness and bad feelings all the way around. Neither the Texas State Nine Ball Open or the San Antonio Rose will be a part of the next McDermott tour. They will be locally directed and promoted directly by the room owner and the sponsors. There will be a return to hands-on management to assure equality if treatment. 

The return to networking among the women pool players as a means of promoting participation, the lowering of entry fees and the focusing on four major events, three of which are women only, is the positive result of the growing dissatisfaction. In many ways this reaction parallels the actions taken by the professional women who split from the men's tour. Since the creation of the separate "Classic Tour" the WPBA has flourished. The most recent statistics on money eared by the men and women's professionals finds more women then men in the top ten money winners. It is a trend worth watching."

January 1994 Headline:

"Wes Hunter, cuemaker and room owner of Alamagordo, NM, has teamed up with Texas attorney Susan Dasher to start an amateur women's tour for the Southwest. The tour is determined to keep entry fees low and pay offs high, with the avowed goal of increasing participation among the amateurs. See next article for more details!"