LIVING INDUCTEE

BETTY LORRAINE (BLAIR) STEELE

DISTRICT 1 - YEAR 2026

Betty Lorraine (Blair) Steele was born into a ranch family on April 26, 1941, to Thomas E. and Edith F. (Brumfield) Blair in Lewistown, Montana. Knowing only a ranching lifestyle and being able to do whatever she set her mind to, she grew up training and riding horses. With no spare funds for entry fees, she was unable to take part in rodeos until her sophomore year of high school. That year and the next two, Betty won the all-around at the district level and was runner-up at state. She competed in breakaway, pole bending, barrel racing and cutting. 

After graduating from Fergus County High School in 1959, Betty attended Northern Montana College (now Montana State University - Northern) for the winter and spring quarter. She made the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) finals in Dickinson, North Dakota, and won the all-around, which included pole bending, barrel racing, and goat and calf tying.

After only two quarters of college, she was persuaded to teach school at Valentine, Montana, roughly 40 miles east of Lewistown. This was a one-room school house with no electricity or running water, and a small teacherage. Betty taught for two years, attending summer school at Northern, after the first year. To pass the long evenings by herself, she did leather work, making belts, purses, and other items, an interest she developed in high school to supplement her income.

In 1964 Jack Bloxham, a rancher from Havre, Montana, and Bob Nordtome, a rancher/trucker from Kalispell, formed a rodeo company, Big Sky Rodeo Company. The following year, Big Sky Rodeo scheduled twenty-two pro rodeos, with the finals held in Augusta, Montana, with Betty winning the championship barrel racing saddle. That year she also won the barrel racing championship in the North Central Montana Rodeo Association (NCMRA). Betty served as NCMRA director, which became the Northern Rodeo Association of Montana and then the Northern Rodeo Association (NRA).

Following her second year of teaching, she made the decision not to attend college that summer and hit the rodeo trail. Under her mom’s guidance, Betty learned to shoe horses. In the fall, she decided not to return to teaching and went to work at the brand office in Lewistown. However, when the Winnett School District had a teacher suddenly leave, they persuaded Betty to finish out the school year. 

After meeting Tom Steele, a bronc rider, and marrying him in 1965, Betty committed to rodeo full-time. The first summer they were married, the couple worked in the Lewistown area then went to work for Bub Nunn on the Missouri River Breaks north of Winnett. Their son, Larry, was born in October of 1966. 

In 1968, the teacher at Cat Creek, located twenty miles east of Winnett, quit mid-year and Betty found herself back in the classroom. Staying at the school all week while Larry was watched by one of the ranch women was hard on Betty. Leaving her teaching career behind, Betty and Tom went to work for Jess Burner of Malta. Burner ran 5,500-6,000 yearling steers during the summer. The Steeles roped and doctored steers and trained their own horses. Betty gives credit to Glen Hough for teaching her how to rope. When the Burner ranch sold, Tom and Betty purchased a small place near Malta. She soon found work with a local veterinarian, learning many skills. The couple continued to rope and train horses, a pastime they enjoyed together. Later, Betty took a brand inspecting job along with working for Page-Whitham, a large cow outfit from Kansas, that brought 4,000 head of yearlings to pasture in the Malta area every summer. Working for them, Betty qualified for the International Feedlot Cowboys Association roping and barrel races. 

The highlight of Betty’s career was in 1976, when she won the 10-steer average at Baker, Montana. Betty remarked, “That’s before the numbered roping’s and you just roped with the big boys!” In 1989, 1990, and 1991, Betty qualified at the regionals in Columbus, Montana, and went on to compete at the International Feedlot Cowboys Finals in Winnemucca and Elko, Nevada, winning the barrels and then placing in the team roping the final year. During this time at the Milk River Pavilion indoor complex in Malta, Betty helped kids train their horses for all events and helped them practice. When Betty heard that the complex was going to close, she offered to manage the premises, in exchange to keep her horses there. Shortly thereafter, a friend encouraged her to begin training barrel futurity horses. She enjoyed doing so for five years, winning often, while she continued team roping. 

After their son Larry married and moved to Wyoming and had a child, in 2001 Betty and Tom purchased a small ranch at Sundance, Wyoming, to be closer to their family.

In 2003, Betty ran barrels and team roped at Devils Tower Night Rodeo, winning the most money overall and a saddle. Following the dislocation of her shoulder, she focused more on barrel racing and continued shoeing only for herself. She learned how to be a horse massage therapist from Buster Hallow of Gillette, Wyoming.

Working part-time on their cattle ranch, Betty also continued to be a brand inspector, working weekly for the State of South Dakota Brand Department at the Belle Fourche Livestock Sale Barn in Belle Fourche, South Dakota. 

Betty has quit riding barrels, but her life continues to honor our Montana western heritage, working cattle at the ranch, brand inspecting for over 20 years, horse massaging, shoeing and training horses or spending time with her family. She looks at her age as just a number and contemplates what else she might do to make memories. The success of this woman of the West was no accident. Betty made sacrifices; sometimes unacknowledged and often with consequences unanticipated. All of which became the chapters of her western story.  

References:

Interview with Betty Steele

Tri-State Livestock News, “Diamond in Dirt”, 2014, by Jen Swan Wood

Great Falls Tribune, April 12, 1964, page 17

Great Falls Tribune, September 13, 1965, page 9