Quirt Hunt – Pro Rodeo Bullfighter
Quirt Hunt will serve as one of the two bullfighters at this year’s Buffalo Bill Rodeo.
Hunt, who grew up in Custer County, Neb., has been “bull rider protector” in North Platte for the last two years, and loves helping cowboys. “I like the satisfaction of doing a good job, and the close calls,” he says.
He competed in high school wrestling and was a bareback and bull rider, before he broke into the pro rodeo world in 2002. Since then, he’s worked such rodeos as Denver, Colo., Colorado Springs, Colo., the Tour Finale in Omaha, and the Turquoise and Prairie Circuit Finals Rodeos.
This year, he’ll have a new partner in the arena who is an old friend. He and Andy Burelle attended bullfighting school together, and often worked the same events.
When he’s not on the road, he raises bucking bulls, trains horses, and raises hanging tree cow dogs. He and his wife Amber have two daughters, ages five and three.
Andy Burelle – Bullfighter
Andy Burelle didn’t have a typical beginning to his rodeo career.
He didn’t see his first rodeo till the age of 19, when he went on a date with a girl. He saw the bullriding, and his first thought was, “That was really cool. I gotta try that.” So he did. He attended a bull riding school, rode bulls for a while, and at the age of 22, began work as a bullfighter. Now, 14 years later, he’s still doing it. He’s worked some of the biggest rodeos on the continent:
Ft. Worth, Salinas, Calif., Calgary, Alberta, and now North Platte.
Because he is originally from Michigan, someone started calling him the Wolverine and the
name stuck. He looks forward to working with the bulls from Beutler and Son Rodeo. “I like working Bennie’s pen, because they all buck. If you get bulls that don’t buck, it’s harder on the bull riders and the bullfighters. (With Beutler bulls) you don’t have anything that’s going to run off, that you have to sprint down to the other end of the arena and catch up to.”
He also looks forward to working with an old friend, Quirt Hunt. He and Quirt attended Rex
Dunn’s bullfighting school, and “we cut our teeth around Rex. When we were younger, we did a bunch (of rodeos) together.”
Andy and his wife Robyn make their home in Ardmore, Okla.