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Cowgirl and Horses Back on Road To Texas

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By LINDSAY PETERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 14, 2009

Updated: 02/14/2009 04:58 pm

DADE CITY - Two days off the road was almost too much for Donna Byrne.

"I'm ready to go. I'm tired of laying around," she said, tightening a rope around the tarp on her pack horse.

She hoisted herself onto her paint horse, Jay, took hold of the ropes attached to the pack horse, Tonto, and made her way out of the Sweetbay grocery store parking lot in Dade City and up U.S. Highway 301 toward Ocala. From there, she said, she's aiming for Texas. Still.

News last week of Byrne's journey west brought her offers of rides and ranch jobs better sounding than the one she lost a few months ago. But she declined them all. She's been riding horses for 30 years, she said. She knows what she's doing and wants to do it her way.

"I appreciate (the offers) But mostly my goal is to make this ride….I want to be able to say I made it," she said.

Byrne, 44, started out in Arcadia about 10 days ago, taking to the road with her two horses, clothes, blankets and a tent. She had to head out after losing her job on a small cattle operation, she said. But she wasn't going to leave her horses behind. So she planned this trip of a lifetime to Texas, she said, where the ranches are worthy of the name.

She didn't attract much attention until she'd travelled about 80 miles into Hillsborough County on Tuesday, when news stories started to circulate. Horse owners began messaging one another on FLAhorse.com and other sites, and an informal group formed to give her shelter on the road and help her on her way.

She spent Thursday and Friday night with horse owners Deborah and Craig Lentz outside Dade City, nursing a cough and letting a sore shoulder rest - though she wouldn't stay still, Craig Lentz said.

"She was about to drive me nuts, always wanting to do something….She cleared the stalls and did laundry. She's a hard worker."

She and Deborah spent time going over the dozens of offers that had come in for Byrne, including rides to Texas and jobs in Nebraska and Vermont. A movie producer called on Friday night to say he wanted to tell her story if she made it to Texas.

Byrne said she never expected her trip to be such a big deal. She likes the attention, even wondering aloud to the Lentzes if word of her journey reached President Obama. But she's also been criticized, called everything from a bum to an animal abuser on the websites that carried her story, including TBO.com.

Some of it made her cry, Deborah Lentz said. Some made her mad.

Much of the criticism has focused on the safety of her horses on the busy roads. Fears for both her and her horses motivated a group of people associated with Cowboys for Christ to try to put together a network of people to watch out for her as she makes her way to Texas.

"She really needs a plan," said Barbara Mackenzie, of the Suncoast Cowboys for Christ.

Planning doesn't seem to be Byrne's strong point. "I take things day by day. I don't like to worry," she said. But she's stubborn. "I want to finish what I started." And she's certain she'll be all right.

She's ridden bulls and driven semi trucks, she said. "I know I can handle whatever comes….I can be mean."

Before she left on Saturday, she had an impromptu reunion with a friend she hadn't seen since childhood, Jeanne Antolchick, who read about Byrne on TBO.com.

The two learned to ride together at Girl Scout camp in east Hillsborough, Antolchick said. Back then, she said, horses were Byrnes favorite companions.

"She still the same," Antolchick said, watching Byrne talking to her horses, tightening the ropes and making her final preparations for a long day on the road.

Byrne can be reached at P.O. Box 797, Dade City, FL 33526.

Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834.

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