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Rider's Texas Trek Continues

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By LINDSAY PETERSON

lpeterson@tampatrib.com

Published: February 15, 2009

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 the ropes attached to the pack horse, Tonto, and made her way up U.S. 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 across the country, all sounding better than the one she lost a few months ago. But she declined them all.

"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.

'She's A Hard Worker'

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 leave after losing her job with a small cattle operation, she said. But she wasn't going to abandon her horses. 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 traveled 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 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," he said. "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 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 Barack Obama. But she's also been criticized, called everything from a bum to an animal abuser on the Web sites that carried her story, including TBO.com.

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

'I Don't Like To Worry'

Much of the criticism has focused on the safety of her horses on the busy roads. Fears for 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, and wants "to finish what I started." And she's certain she'll be all right.

She's ridden bulls and driven tractor-trailers, she said. "I know I can handle whatever comes. ... I can be mean."

Before she left Dade City 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 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 through P.O. Box 797, Dade City FL 33526.

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