NHSRA member Bridget Jackson – JJJ Photo
story by Ruth Nicolaus
Bridget Jackson is a barrel racer, breakaway roper, and team roper in the Nebraska High School Rodeo Association.
The eighteen year old cowgirl who lives in Bassett, Neb., rides two horses for her events. Streaker is a nine year old sorrel who is her new barrel horse. He likes to run and performs better if Bridget has consistently ridden him during the week. She got him last summer to replace her other horse, Hot Rod, who is getting too old to barrel race.
Hot Rod is 18 years old, a bay roan who is her breakaway and heel horse. He loves to rodeo, she says, and loves to rope. “He’s more of a rope horse than he is anything,” she says.
Bridget is a student at Rock County High School, and the best part of school is that she is a senior. She loves ag class and considers her ag teacher, Miss Dvorak, her favorite teacher. “She always tells me I can. She believes I can do it, and tells me, just go and believe in myself.” The hardest part of school is being inside. “I’m more of an outside person,” Bridget says.
In high school, she played volleyball a year and basketball two years. She has run track for three years and will again this spring, as a discus thrower and shot putter. Last year, she was the recipient of a Niobrara Valley Conference Honor Roll certificate, for her good grades.
For fun this past summer, she rode her horses, especially Streaker. She competed in two Mid-States Rodeos, Stuart and O’Neill, to get Streaker ready for high school rodeo. She also worked for both of her grandmas, doing yard work and house work, mowing, cleaning, doing dishes, vacuuming and dusting. She got paid, but she was also rewarded with some good food: spaghetti and calico beans, two of her favorite dishes that her grandmas make.
Bridget loves to go to the movies with her friends. The closest theater is in Valentine, sixty miles away, but they’ll often gather at someone’s house and watch a movie. Her favorite movies are the “Twilight Saga” series, and she’s read all of the “Twilight” books as well. Her recommendation is to read the books before seeing the movies: the books go into a lot more detail than the movies do.
Next fall, Bridget hopes to attend the Nebraska College of Agricultural Technology in Curtis, where she wants to college rodeo and get her vet tech degree.
She has a younger brother, Ty, who is sixteen and who team ropes with her.
She is the daughter of Robert and Connie Jackson.
