story by Ruth Nicolaus
Maddie Meidell might seem to be quiet and reserved, but once you get to know her, she’s feisty and sassy.
The seventeen-year-old cowgirl, a member of the Nebraska High School Rodeo Association is shy around people until she gets to know them well. Then she warms up and “it all comes to the surface,” she says.
Maddie competes in the team roping (as a header for Maddie Stump), the breakaway roping, goat tying, and pole bending. Her strength is the breakaway roping, as that is what she qualified for at state last year. But she loves the team roping the best, because “I caught onto it really fast.”
Her head horse is a bay named Ringo who is borrowed from a close friend. Her breakaway horse just went to college with her sister, so she’s starting her goat tying and pole bending horse, Harley, on the breakaway. Harley is a five year old gray who was raised by the Meidells. “She’ll really hunt a calf,” Maddie said. “We just have to get her sound in the box and get her through a barrier and she’ll be good to go.”
Maddie, who lives thirty miles south of Harrison, Nebraska, is a senior at Sioux County High School. The entire school population for grades nine through twelve is 29 students; her senior class is made up of three girls. She loves it. “It’s a lot of fun, actually. We’re all really close. It’s like family.” Her school has a strong emphasis on learning. “We get a lot of one on one time, and the teachers are really great. Academics really come first here.” Her favorite teacher is Mrs. Engebretson, called Mrs. E by the students. “”She’s really great with all of us. She really likes to help us. (In her classroom) we do a lot of labs and white board work.”
Maddie is the vice-president of her school’s FFA chapter, a member of the National Honor Society, and on the honor roll. She plays volleyball and basketball.
After high school graduation, she will attend college and rodeo collegiately. She’d like to become a veterinarian.
For fun, she and her friends will get together at each other’s houses to watch movies, or go to the movies or the mall in Scottsbluff or Chadron.
The Meidell family has three pet dogs: Claire, a border collie who is the family rodeo dog because she travels with them to the rodeos; Bubba, an Australian shepherd-border collie mix, and Fuzz, a puppy.
Maddie has an older sister, Abby, who is in her first year of college at Central Wyoming in Riverton, and a younger brother, Leif, who is in the eighth grade. She is the daughter of Eric and Tricia Meidell.
