White's 1 horespower vehicle, a nine-year-old palomino named Cecil, is becoming more and more visible around Caribou. White uses Cecil for nongasoline transportation whenever he can to run errands around the city.

His 8.5 acre ranch, on the Grimes Road, is about three miles from the intersection of Route 1 and Bennett Drive, the eastern edge of Caribou's business district.

He's been seen at drive-in bank teller stations and around the Pizza Hut parking lot.

"High gasoline and fuel prices are important to us," he said Friday morning. "I just can't see using this high-price fuel every day. I don't believe we should be paying these high prices for fuel.

"I'm trying to make a statement," he said of his effort. "It's not a protest, because that is a harsh word.

"I'm hoping George from Texas, who lives in Washington at this time, will listen to it," he said. "I've been riding to town for a long time, just more and more recently."

He figures he saves $50 to $60 a month on fuel costs by using his horse for transportation whenever he can.

The White family effort doesn't stop at using four-legged transportation. The family heats its medium-sized red shingle home with wood and uses mostly wood to cook. The kitchen features a very old kitchen stove.

Although one daughter revealed that it doesn't really keep her room warm, White said they just add more blankets during cold spells.

"We try to be as conscious as we can with the use of fuel," he said.

White also considering the purchase of a small biodiesel plant to make his own diesel fuel. He needs the diesel fuel to run a pickup needed on the ranch.

Cecil - named after White's grandfather who taught him to love horses - is just one of nine horses White raises on DG White Quarterhorse, his business since 1998.

Four vehicles were parked in his driveway Friday. He said his wife, Mary, needs one to get to work at the Aroostook Mental Health Center, and his four daughters share a vehicle. A brother-in-law who lives upstairs has the fourth vehicle.

White loves riding to town. It isn't an inconvenience for the man who has spent some 30 of his 50 years around horses.

"They're my passion as well as my business," said the man who came to Caribou eight years ago from Houlton. Before that he lived in Dexter.

He's going to Texas next week to work on a cattle ranch, a birthday gift from his wife.

He hopes the use of his horse for transportation will catch on.

"Can you imagine the difference it would make if horse owners used their horses consistently one day a week?" he said. "It would cut fuel consumption by millions of gallons.

"I feel at ease hurting large oil companies," he said. "I don't like to hurt the man at the pump because he has nothing to do with the price of fuel.

"The gasoline outlets make pennies a gallon," he said. "It's the big oil companies who need some kind of control, especially from government."

White was at ease in the country-style home where the walls are lined with family photographs. Many of them show people in Western dress, hats and all. He even drinks coffee in a large mug with the portrait of a cowboy on it.

He donned cowboy boots to finish his Western attire of jeans and shirt to go out to the pasture where his horses were feeding on fresh, green grass.

"I take any opportunity I can to ride," he said, and whistled for the horses to come to him. "It's only half an hour or so to get to town by riding the horse.

"It's also a fun time," said the true-blue northern Maine cowboy. "People stop and talk. Kids really like the horse."
"This content originally appeared as a copyrighted article in the Saturday, May 20, 2006 edition of the Bangor Daily NEWS and is used here with permission."