Joan Ballard, pioneering Portland wrestler, discovered her true self on the road. Then she came home. It was a late afternoon in April when Joan Ballard received the invitation to revisit a world she’d left behind long ago. Ballard, now 86, settled in an easy chair that Tuesday and held the ticket that, if she wished, would take her back to the wild way of life that once defined her. She dismissed the offer with a wave of her hand. “That,” she said, “is in the past.” It’s hard to imagine this 5-foot-2 slip of a woman as Jessica Rogers, the stage name given to her by a promoter who thought it sounded sexy. The Jefferson High School graduate lost herself in Rogers, leaving Portland in 1954 to barnstorm the country as a professional wrestler at a time when the pay was low, the environment low-rent and the sport was still trying to straddle the line between legitimate competition and scripted, circus-like showmanship. During her 19-year career, Ballard had more than 700 bouts and onc...