Mitch Barney and Butch Levell turned their longtime friendship into one of their biggest shared accomplishments yet, winning the 2025 Great Lakes Circuit Finals average for $4,386 a man.
The Nebraska men picked up $9,503 apiece in their trip to the North American Championship Rodeo in Louisville, Kentucky, placing in every round along the way to the aggregate title with a 22.4 on three steers.
“I’ve never teared up after a run, but after we run that third one, it really hit deep,” Levell, 27, said.
Barney and Levell’s partnership spans nearly decades, meeting when Levell was just a 10-year-old kid at jackpots and horse shows.
“He’s a big brother to me, is what he is,” Levell said. “My family was never into horses or anything ever; my dad owns a scrap yard and has been a very successful businessman his whole life. I just looked up to him one day and said I wanted to be a cowboy. We started riding horses and stuff and got in with the right people, and after I got to roping for a couple years, Mitch kind of come around. After that, we’ve been the bestest of friends ever since I was little. We went to all the USTRC ropings together, and he’s helped me and coached me throughout my whole roping career.”
Barney, 42, has one other Great Lakes Circuit Finals title to his name, taking the crown in 2019. After bouncing around circuits the past few years, Barney hadn’t been back to the Great Lakes Circuit Finals since 2020—which was held in Missouri due to COVID-19. Still, he remembers the first title well.
“The second one is always better,” Barney said with a laugh. “The setup was the exact same, or pretty similar. We got our first one, just kind of caught our second one and then our third one was just like with J.W. Nelson and I where they had us by a second or two. Then it’s like, well, $2,000 sounds good. Which this year it’s like $3,000 for second. It was like, man, just go catch.”
Barney and Levell’s method worked in every round as they won the first round with 6.5 for $2,924 apiece, finished fourth in the second round with a 7.4 for $731 each and added another $1,462 a man with an 8.5-second run in the third round.
The average title marks Levell’s first and, after claiming the Badlands Circuit the year before, the sold-out crowd and electric atmosphere inside Louisville’s Freedom Hall Nov. 13-15, was something he’ll remember forever.
“It’s unbelievable,” Levell said. “I went Badlands last year and went up to the circuit finals in Minot last year. When you’re in Louisville and there’s 15,000 people there, the third round almost feels like you’re at the Thomas & Mack.”
Though thick as thieves, Barney and Levell didn’t start the year as partners. At the start of June—and within a week of each other—their original partners both decided to do something different. The timing aligned perfectly for Barney and Levell.
“We rope together every day, and we’re like brothers or whatever,” Barney said. “We jackpot together. He just always wants to rodeo quite a bit harder than I do, and I just want to go to the minimum to make our circuit finals; I’ve always done that. But when that happened, I didn’t even really ask him. I just started putting our name down and he was surprised or whatever at that time.”
The North American Championship Rodeo was also a much-needed bright spot in a tough season in the horse department for Barney. In 2023, Barney made the Cheyenne Frontier Days short round on SEENMYSHAREOFFLIT, who became his No. 1. But earlier this year he lost the gelding. His wife’s 9-year-old barrel horse Miss Lions Freckle got the call and quickly adapted well, helping them get the win in Louisville.
“Stacy had less won than me, and Butchie was just kind of putting his foot down that he wanted to go, and we were kind of on the bubble at that time,” Barney said. “I’ve heeled on that mare as like a jackpot horse wherever I go. And in the heading, I’ve just kind of seasoned her over the last couple of years at probably three amateur rodeos a year. Then she just got thrown to the wolves.”
Barney and Levell’s history is also tied into their horses. Barney helped deliver the horse Levell now rides, born in Barney’s barn. BL Sharing The Ladies is also a Lions Share Of Fame offspring and is out of the mare Levell first learned to rope on.
“I headed for three or four years in the PRCA before I heeled, and Mitch told me I needed to breed to the Lion Share Of Fame if I wanted a great head horse,” Levell said. “When he was 4, I was kind of starting to head on him, and then right when he was 4 I was switching over to heeling, so we just went straight to heeling steers on him. He might not be the fanciest thing in the heeling, but he’s the easiest to catch on and he can run so hard.”
Barney and Levell now have their tickets punched for the NFR Open in Colorado Springs next July, but their plans for the year will remain the same.
“I’ve been chasing [the NFR Open] for quite a long time, and it’s pretty cool that I get the rope with Mitch over there and get to go against all the other circuit teams,” Levell said. “It will kind of be the same thing. Mitch has his job where he has to go work during the week, and then we kind of sneak off. So, we’re really not looking to switch. We’re just kind of going to ease around.”
