Lacey’s Spring native Heather Bundy, 23, is no stranger to the reins of a horse.

She is a competitive barrel racer, team roper and breakaway roper — and now she is the Miss Limestone County Sheriff’s Rodeo Queen.

“She’s a fireball,” said Limestone County Special Projects Manager Paul Cain. “We’re very fortunate to have her.”

Bundy’s love for horses and rodeo began long before the 2017 Limestone County Sheriff’s Rodeo. When she was a schoolgirl, she wasn’t chasing a soccer ball around, she was riding horses.

“This is all I’ve ever done,” she said. “It’s something I live and breathe. I’ve been rodeoing since I can remember.”

Limestone County Sheriff’s Rodeo

Though this year was not Bundy’s first time around the ring as royalty or rider, she almost passed it up. He grandfather, who helped fuel her interest in rodeo and even bought her first horse, died last December.

“He was my biggest supporter and biggest fan,” she said. “He is the reason I entered rodeos.”

A month before the deadline to enter the 2017 Miss Limestone County Rodeo Queen Pageant, Bundy didn’t plan to compete.

“I said I was done rodeo queening, and I started selling my pageant stuff to focus on just competing in rodeos,” she said.

As the days wore on, Bundy felt in her heart she needed to enter the rodeo pageant for her grandfather.

“He always knew I had it in me to win,” she said. “It was still on my heart, and I entered. I wrote my speech one time and it was the exact time limit required. Everything really fell into place for me.”

When Bundy entered this year, she was both excited and nervous. After the contests, she didn’t feel confident about her performance.

“I didn’t think I did well at all,” she said. “Then it ended up where I won most all categories.”

Not only did she win the queen title, she also won in the horsemanship, speech and most-photogenic categories, which suggests she should score well when she makes the trip to Oklahoma City for the Miss Rodeo USA Pageant in January.

This will be Bundy’s third trip to the top rodeo pageant in the country. She qualified to go in 2013 as Miss West Point Rodeo in Cullman and in 2014 as Miss Morgan County.

Outside the rodeo

Even when Bundy is not suiting up to barrel race or dressing up for pageants, she works with and around horses. She trains and shows horses and gives riding lessons to young people, often using her own truck and trailer to haul horses and students to Little Britches Rodeos.

“She is a patient trainer,” Cain said. “She has a lot of students whose parents come to her to train their kids for horsemanship. She hauls kids all over the southeast.”

Bundy said she devotes her time to children — either at her part-time day-care job or when training them in horsemanship — because she enjoys being around them. They tie in with her love of rodeo.

“That’s what a rodeo queen does — she pushes the sport and interacts with the children,” she said.

Cain said Bundy’s passions for children and rodeo were obvious as she was competing in Limestone County, making her “the definition of an ambassador.”

“The younger (contestants) flock to her,” he said. “They emulate every move she makes. She has the greatest patience in the world. She carries them all over the place. If she’s been invited to represent us somewhere, she takes one or two (younger contestants) with her and teaches them. It really promotes our entire pageant process.”

What’s next

Bundy isn’t sure if she will continue rodeo pageantry after this year, but she’s positive she will continue to compete in rodeos.

“Once you win Miss Rodeo USA, you’re done, you’ve tapped out,” she said. “In the rodeo competition world, you can win a world title and go back and try again.”

Bundy’s long-term goal is to continue school at Athens State University, where she is pursing her degree in business management. She plans to own and manage her family’s farm someday.

Until then, she works part time at a day care and at Tidmore Performance Horses in Arab.

“I don’t know anything else,” she said. “I can’t imagine my life without horses.”