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Mills began teaching himself to make cow whips at fifteen, using leather from discarded boot tops. Today he painstakingly fashions whips from buckskin by first cutting the "strings" from tanned hides, then braiding several layers in a carefully controlled taper. Mills protects his finished whips by coating them with a mixture he makes by heating beef tallow, beeswax, and pine rosin together.

Mills' apprentice, Taylor Marcus, a student at Okeechobee's Yearling Middle School, has repaired whips for himself and his friends and made one whip on his own. He is excited to have the opportunity to learn from Mills, who is well known and highly respected in the ranching community around Okeechobee.

Whip maker George "Junior" Mills of Okeechobee has been working cattle on Florida ranches - mostly in the Lake Okeechobee area, but as far north as Wildwood - since he was fourteen. He estimates that he has made more than 2,000 cow whips in sixty-one years.