story by Ruth Nicolaus
Gentry Godbey has a bright, sparkly personality.
The cowgirl, a Colorado Junior High School Rodeo member, is upbeat, positive, and a delight to be around.
A resident of Montrose, Colo., she competes in the breakaway roping, goat tying and rifle shooting. Of her events, she feels the goat tying is her best.
It’s due to her palomino horse Scooter, “a short little dude that I really love,” she said. “We have a great connection. He’s super fast, so when we go in the arena, it’s like flying. It’s great.”
For the breakaway roping, she rides Bella, a dun mare, who “has taught me everything I know about the breakaway,” Gentry said. Bella can be a handful in the box, but Gentry is patient. “It’s hard to get her backed up into the box. She wants to move around a bunch, so it’s been a great learning experience, to have her teach me.”
She is an eighth grade student and attends Peak Academy’s online program. She started that this semester, and enjoys it. “I get done with my schoolwork earlier than with public school, and I get to ride, practice rodeo, and check on cows.”
Her favorite subject is writing. She loves to write stories, especially about her horses. Her least favorite subject is math.
Gentry plays volleyball and runs track for Centennial Middle School and plays on the Black Canyon volleyball travel team.
Her favorite holiday is Christmas, because of the magic of the season. She can’t name the best thing her mom makes, because there are so many things, but the chocolate birthday cakes her mom bakes are towards the top of the list. For Gentry’s birthday, her mom has made a variety of different shaped cakes for her birthday: a cowboy boot, a horse head, and even a goat tying cake one year.
Her favorite beverage is A&W root beer, and the best trip she’s been was to the Hawaiian island of Kauai, in 2019. The family swam in the ocean, attended a luau, and ate shaved ice every day. The island is full of wild chickens, and Gentry loved catching them.
If she were given $1 million, she would buy a ranch, a “cool” truck and trailer, and donate money.
She’d pick two options for the truck: either an F350 King Ranch Ford, black exterior, with all the embellishments, or an “old 1997 Ford 7.3L. I think girls look super tough and cool in old trucks,” she said.
As for the donation, it would go to Equine Empowerment, a non-profit her mom runs. Gentry often volunteers with the therapeutic riding program, helping clients with disabilities ride horses and learn horsemanship skills.
For fun, she likes to ride her horses, including Scooter, who she rides bareback almost everywhere. She helps around the family ranch, breaking ice on stock tanks during the winter and feeding cattle, horses, and the other pets around the place: mini ponies, chickens, goats, cats and dogs. She has a herd of mini-chickens: seramas and bantams. “They are so cute,” she said.
She has a variety of occupations she might pursue when she grows up: veterinarian, western lifestyle and rodeo photographer, and rodeo stock contractor, among them.
She is currently ranked second in the state junior high standings in the goat tying, and will compete in March at the Junior Patriot Rodeo in Fort Worth in the goat tying.
Her mom and dad, Beth and Ben, love their girl.
“Gentry is really compassionate, she’s humble, and I love watching her compete,” Beth said. “She gives 110 percent. She always gives it her all. Even when she makes a mistake or it doesn’t go her way, you’ll never see her blame her horse or anyone else. It fires her to work harder.”
Gentry has two younger brothers: Colt, age twelve, and Gage, who is eleven.