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Cowgirl Finds Support In Ocala On Way To Texas

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By LINDSAY PETERSON

lpeterson@tampatrib.com

Published: February 22, 2009

OCALA - Donna Byrne's horses are happy.

Settled into stalls at a horse auction north of Ocala, Tonto and Jay spent Saturday resting and munching on grain. But they still have a long walk ahead of them.

Byrne, 44, set out from Arcadia with the horses about three weeks ago. Her goal was Texas, and she hasn't wavered.

She got this far with the help of people she met along the way who set up a relay of overnight stops every 10 to 20 miles. With luck, the network that's forming around her journey will get her all the way.

Cindi Perugino and Barbara Mackenzie, who live near Bushnell, set up a Web site to track Byrne's progress, http://cowgirlsjourney.webs .com. They're trying to pull together people along her path who might be able to give her and her horses a place to stay for a night or two. Byrne is carrying her own tent and blankets.

Standing by Tonto's stall at the auction Saturday, a man stopped to ask whether she was the Texas-bound cowgirl he had seen on television.

"I guess so," she said, looking at the ground.

"I think you got a lotta guts," he said.

Asked later if she thinks of herself as gutsy, she said, "Nope."

She didn't set out on this trip to make a statement, she said. She had lost her job on a small ranch near Arcadia and couldn't find any other steady work in the area. "I ain't got nowhere else to go and I want to get outta Florida."

She doesn't have any other way to go, either, except on horseback. She doesn't have a car, doesn't even have a driver's license after losing it because she'd gotten too many speeding tickets, she said.

She picked Texas because she figured she could get a good ranch job there, and the closer she gets, the more determined she is to get there. "I want to show that I can make the ride."

But it hasn't been easy spending every day in the saddle, she said.

People have criticized her on the Web sites that have carried her story, many saying she's a con artist just trying to get people to give her donations.

"I ain't doing this for the money," Byrne said. "I didn't ask for those donations. ... This trip is my own business. I'm doing it for my own reasons, and I'm tired of people trying to cut me down."

On Monday, she plans to head out of Ocala and make her way day by day toward Alabama. There, she plans to pick up U.S. 84 and head west.

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

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