Bandera Babe

Bellinda Myrick-Barnett hits the ground running with her first novel "BANDERA BABE," a kick-ass modern western female lead character in an equally kick ass novel. Bellinda grew up in West Texas and lived for a while in Bandera, Texas 30 minutes west of San Antonio.

A 'Baby Boomer' herself, Bellinda followed in her Country singer father Bill Myrick's footsteps as her mother LaVerne Slaughter Myrick guided her to be the first Miss West Texas, Miss Texas and Miss America State Titleholder to sing Country Music.

When Phyllis George as Miss Texas 1970 won Miss America 1971, the morning after she immediately went to pageant director George Cavalier insisting that he put Bellinda in the seven-woman Miss America USO Show 1971 that was to entertain the USA Military in South Vietnam during the War telling him that Bellinda was THE best Country singer and overall singer she had ever heard. Cavalier complied and the girls brought down the house everywhere they were in South Vietnam including singing for Bellinda's then-fianc?now husband then Army Captain Thomas H. "Barney" Barnett, III. Currently living on a small ranch in Texas, Bellinda embarks on this new journey in life with the same excitement as she did when joining the legendary singing group "Up With People" as a soloist at 19 years old sending her traveling abroad for her first time ever for four months in Italy, four months in Canada and one month in Zaire/Congo, Africa as guests of then-President Joseph Mobutu Sese Seku.

During her year with the group, they did a national NBC TV Special with Bob Hope and then he later hosted their live performance for a celebrity audience at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. It would happen that Bellinda and Mr. Hope would yet work together on other occasions when she was Miss Texas and after. Working with many other celebrities and meeting Presidents and Kings from around the world were just some of the perks that would pave the way for Bellinda's incredibly interesting storylines in this her first book and others waiting in the wings.