Mike MacDowell is a man of faith, and so, when Hurricane Irma blew through LaBelle, Florida, he had faith that his home and the bucking stock of Bull Pit Outreach Ministries would withstand the monster storm.
“People don’t think of Florida as cattle country,” explained MacDowell. “But our state is one of the largest beef producers. And we raise bucking bulls in Florida.”
That means a whole lot of fence fixing had to be done after Hurricane Irma had passed through.
MacDowell has been raising bucking bulls for well over a decade and says he and his family live the bull business. His youngest son, Nathan Smith, is a professional bullfighter spending this last year in Canada on the International Professional Rodeo Association Circuit and his middle son, Timmy Smith, is a professional bull rider in the IPRA.
“It’s always been a family deal,” MacDowell said. “When I married my wife she had sons.”
Those sons became MacDowell’s sons and the family traveled to rodeos with the boys growing up competing. The bucking bull business was a natural fit and MacDowell, who is a pastor, put together Bull Pit Outreach Ministries to offer other youth the chance to ride bulls.
“I did it for the youth and the kids to give them something to do to keep them out of trouble. Want to wake up a kid, put them on the back of a bull,” MacDowell said with a chuckle.
The herd of Bull Pit Ministries was started 13 years ago with one bull and one cow. From there, MacDowell has built up his bucking stock to number more than 200 head of cows and bulls. His breeding program includes some of the top bloodlines in the bucking bull business.
“When I started up, there was a lot of Houdini and Whitewater Skoal out there,” MacDowell stated. “I picked up some bulls at a dispersal sale here in Florida and put Page bloodlines into my program.”
That includes a Crossfire Hurricane bull whose offspring have sold for a lot of money. There’s Savage Slinger bloodlines, along with lines of Backlash and Magic Train. And there’s also some Little Yellow Jacket genetics too.
MacDowell is proud of the breeding program he has developed. He could be out on the road competing with his bulls in the top organizations. But he chooses not to travel hauling bulls to competitions.
“Being a pastor, I have to be here Thursdays and Sundays, so I stick close to home. We have about a dozen competition bulls being hauled around the East Coast by the Rawhide Rodeo Company. And I compete with futurity bulls in the Southeast Bucking Bull Association events. Our bulls could compete anywhere. I just don’t travel.”
When MacDowell heard the news of the approaching record breaking hurricane, his first thought was for the safety of the bucking stock herd it had taken over a decade to develop. MacDowell had total faith that his herd and his home would survive the ravages of the storm. But he also knew that he would have to take steps to keep his bulls and cows out of harm’s way, and he needed to make sure his bucking stock didn’t run away and get lost.
“We had plenty of time to prepare,” said MacDowell, who spent the days before the storm hit gathering supplies and making sure his cattle were in safe areas and accounted for. “We feed every day. And I needed to make sure we had enough feed before the storm came through. I called on Friday to get bull feed and the person on the phone told me to make sure my house was ready,” MacDowell recalled. “And I said to myself, ‘It’s not my house I worry about’,” he added with a laugh. “I needed to make sure my cattle were safe. They are what I work for.”
MacDowell made sure everything was secure and that he knew the location of all the cattle. To protect the bulls, MacDowell brought them into a central pasture where they would be safer from flooding and falling trees.
Although LaBelle did not get the heaviest brunt of the storm, Hurricane Irma’s 110 mile an hour winds tore down trees and left debris scattered throughout the South Florida country of Hendry. The unofficial rain totals from the National Weather Service reached 10.3 inches in LaBelle.
After two days, MacDowell was able to return to the ranch and assess the damage.
“The house only lost a gutter,” MacDowell said. “There were a lot of trees down, but there was no major damage. I am a faithful guy. I knew it would be okay.”
And when MacDowell went to check on his cattle, he saw just how okay things were.
“All my fences were still standing. There were tree limbs on every fence, but none of them were down. And the cows were all there just looking at me.”
And the bull’s pasture had not been flooded by the rain. But then the neighbors began pumping water out of their pastures.
“The farmers started pumping off water and that flooded the bull pasture. But the water did not get deep enough to have to move the bulls.”
Almost two months after the storm, MacDowell is still fixing the fence that was damaged by the fallen limbs. He’s spent most of the time since the storm at the neighbor’s farms repairing their fences.
“I’ve been helping others. That’s the way we are here. This area produces a lot of beef and there are a lot of cattle. And that means a lot of fence needed to be repaired.”
MacDowell’s bulls are still penned up awaiting the pastures to dry out and get back to normal. MacDowell is still removing the debris of the fallen trees from his land. And he’s fixing fence. Yet he’s feeling good about the overall outcome of weathering the landmark hurricane.
“We haven’t gotten the bulls moved because the pastures are still not back to normal. But overall, we have come out of the storm in pretty good shape.”
Terry Lidral for BST
Author: Terry Lidral
Terry Lidral is a western writer/journalist who lives in Idaho. She is the publisher and editor of the online magazine Bucking Stock Talk and the online magazine Western Living Journal. Her publishing credits include Storyteller for Real American Cowboy Magazine, writing feature articles for Humps N Horns Magazine as well as a wide variety of national and international web sites, historical magazines and news publications. She is known for her "up close and personal" profiles of celebrities and industry moguls such as NPR's Tom Bodett; PBR's Wiley Petersen and D.H. Page, PRCA's Sammy Andrews, Cindy Rosser and Julio Moreno to name a few. She has been applauded for her way of making a personal connection between her readers and her subjects. She indulges in her love of rodeo by serving as an associate board member for the Caldwell Night Rodeo. She is also an accomplished trainer and handler in dog agility. Her shelties Amelie and Milo are titled in NADAC, USDAA and AKC.
