Ranching life Miss B: The Ragtag Rancher Kid

When you think cowgirl, think Beatrice Elaine Janetka Bell.

The self-described “ragtag ranch kid” has spent 73 years of life getting down and dirty in the New Mexico dirt, with decades of experience riding the range, raising cattle, and breaking barriers as one of the state’s first certified female livestock inspectors.

Today, Bell helps her cousin Gerald Janetka, 83, his wife Joanne, 79, her niece Gail White and her husband Scott run around 47 head of Angus on about 20 sections at Ladrón Ranch west of Socorro. She said the property is such a “rock pile” that despite the size they have to keep their herd small.

“We’re the geriatric crew,” Bell said, with a laugh, though she hopes everyday that her passion for cattle and agriculture trickles down to the next two generations.

Their ranch, she admits, isn’t for getting rich. It continues to exist because of the love of the lifestyle, the love of the animals, helping the mamas’ birth, watching the calves grow and knowing every critter by sight. It’s a love, said Bell, that you have to grow up possessing or spend your life learning.

Either way, she said, it’s an obsession — for the animals or the freedom they allow, we can only speculate.

Known affectionately by family and friends as Aunt B, Bell was born in Deming, N.M., and raised all over the state, including her father’s cotton farm in the Mimbres Valley and her mother’s home in the Sacramento Mountains near Cloudcroft, where her ancestors homesteaded the K Heart Ranch.

“My grandparents raised me,” she said. “My grandfather worked for the government, so we moved a lot.”

Her grandfather’s work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Army Corps of Engineers resulted in her placement as the only Anglo student in a Navajo residential school at Rock Point, Ariz., when she was 8.

Bell, who is of Cherokee ancestry, said that looking back at the time she spent as a child amongst Navajo, Hopi and Apache peers helped inform how she operated later in life as a cattlewoman and livestock inspector.

“I have to say that I think being exposed to the Native American cultures instilled in me more respect. I respect the land, livestock and nature,” she said. “I think seeing their cultures in some of the most desolate areas — and hard, hard areas — it really instilled to me that it doesn’t matter if you call him God, or you call him Spirit — there is a stronger being that created us, the Creator. I carry that with me in my everyday life; that awareness and thankfulness for everything.”

Now semi-retired after decades of being a livestock inspector for 18 years and a USDA meat inspector prior to that, Bell humbly claims she is now just a weekend-cowboy who slips away every chance she gets to visit her cattle on the rugged, rocky terrain of Ladrón Peak Ranch.

“It’s in my blood,” she said. “You’ve got to love it. I get cow-sick if I don’t see them. I’ve even driven around the West Mesa just to look at cows when I couldn’t get out to the ranch.”

Her bond with animals is evident in her devotion to Mr. Jack — her 36-year-old paint horse, a rescue she lovingly calls “Handsome Jack.”

“He’s arthritic, and I can’t ride him much anymore, but I’m going to take care of him until his last breath,” she said. “He knows when the cows are near. He’ll stand for hours watching them. He knows his purpose.”

Beyond ranching, Bell built an impressive career in public service. She started with the New Mexico Livestock Board in 1998 as a receptionist and became a meat inspector a year later. In 2000, she transitioned to brand inspecting, then made history in 2002 by becoming one of the few women to complete law enforcement training and serve as a certified livestock inspector.

“Back then, only four other women had made it through the academy,” she said. “I was 50. That job was the best I ever had.”

She covered a vast territory — Valencia, Socorro, Sandoval, Torrance and Sierra counties — investigating thefts, abuse cases and brand violations. While she often faced skepticism and protectiveness from ranchers unused to women in law enforcement, she won respect with humility, grit and knowledge.

“I’d been working cattle my whole life,” she said. “It took time, but I proved myself.”

Bell officially retired from the Livestock Board in 2013, but retirement didn’t stick. She returned to work within a month — and even now, after leaving her most recent job as a code enforcement officer, she’s looking forward to the next chapter.

“I’m not done,” she said. “You don’t retire from this life. It’s who you are.”