Press Release
Lincoln County (Neb) cowgirls to compete at Buffalo Bill Rodeo
North Platte, Neb. – Gayle White has been running barrels as a rodeo cowgirl for longer than Bailey Bell has been alive.
Both women, Lincoln County residents, will compete at the Buffalo Bill Rodeo in North Platte this weekend.
White, who lives near Dickens, and Bell, who lives near Hershey, are barrel racers, one at the beginning of her career, and the other, towards the end.
White, age 76, has been a horse lover since she was a child. Two sisters were neighbors to her parents when she was young, and they were both barrel racers. “They were my heroes,” she said, “and I wanted to be just like them. I always had a horse habit. I always liked to ride.”
She got married, had two children, and spent 25 years in Alaska and Colorado Springs before coming back to Dickens in 1994.
Through those years, she didn’t always have horses or barrel race, but she estimates she began competing more seriously in 2003, after her kids were grown.
Bailey Bell, Hershey, is in the beginning part of her career. The twenty-year-old, a student at Chadron (Neb.) State College, competed in high school rodeo and competes collegiately as well.
She’s known White for years, and says she’s someone the barrel racers look up to.
“She has amazing horses,” Bell said, “and she rides really well. The older you get, the harder it is to keep your seat in the saddle, and your balance. Gayle continues to kick all our butts.”
A 2024 graduate of Hershey High School, Bell is studying ag business and hopes to graduate from college in May of next year.
In North Platte, she’ll be aboard a 13-year-old mare named Journey, who she purchased last fall.
“We’ve been trying to figure each other out,” she said. “We were struggling.” At the last college rodeo of the season, “everything clicked and we did well.”
Bell usually trains her own horses, so she spends hours with them and knows their personality.
With Journey, it was different. “It’s hard to figure out a horse you haven’t trained. I had to figure out what she liked and figure out how to get out of her way, but also tell her what to do without making her mad.”
White raised her own barrel horses for years, breeding, raising, breaking and training them. She’s only bought two horses in her life that someone else broke and trained. But now she’s quit raising them. “I decided I was too old for colts,” she laughed.
In North Platte, she will be aboard a “project horse,” a horse that shows potential but for various reasons is difficult to work with. White has had Madam, the 10-year-old project horse, for five years, and the mare has come around.
“It took two or three years to get everything straightened out with her,” White said. She discovered health issues that no one else had found: Madam is sugar-intolerant and cannot eat fresh grass, because her muscles get tight. The horse is on a low-sugar, low-carb diet.
White not only continues to barrel race competitively, but she works part-time, selling real estate.
She’s considered retirement, but “I have this horse habit,” she laughed. “And it requires money.”
Bell would love to be competitive into her seventies, like Gayle is.
“The end goal is to be doing what Gayle does at her age, and keep doing it. If Gayle can keep doing it, I want to.”
White loves running barrels. It fulfills her love of horses and drive to compete.
“I’ve always had a horse habit,” she said, “an addiction. I guess I’m competitive, and barrel racing is an adrenaline rush, like race car drivers or motorcycle racers.”
Both women will compete at the Buffalo Bill Rodeo this week. Bell is in the slack competition, the extra competition that takes place Wed., June 17, starting at 9 am. White is also in slack, on Thurs., June 18, at 9 am.
This year’s Buffalo Bill Rodeo boasts more than 540 contestants in eight events (bareback riding, steer wrestling, tie-down roping, saddle bronc riding, team roping, breakaway roping, barrel racing and bull riding.) Performances are June 17-20 at 7:30 pm nightly.
Tickets range in price from $11-$26 and can be purchased online at NebraskalandDays.com, at the NebraskalandDays office, and at the gate.
For more information and a complete schedule of NebraskalandDays events, visit the website or call the office at 308.532.7939.