Glowin' & Showin'

Sophia invited me to be a part of the children's advocacy Glow Run in down town Rogers which benefits a group in an effort to prevent child abuse. Sophia brought her two ponies, all dolled up, and we visited with kids, let them take photos and visited with the event attendees. I was talking to one girl and signing an autograph sheet. A little bit later a girl came running back up, her name was Gabby. She said "I will always follow my heart." It took me a minute to realize why she said that. When I hand out autograph sheets, I write a note on each one and I wrote "Always remember to follow your heart" on hers. It meant so much to me to to what I wrote to heart.

There was about 1000 attendees! Shiloh was just as big of a hit as the ponies and he was not lacking any attention! Shiloh and I both wore green in support of my cousin, Tony, who was having an organ donation evaluation that day. Green is the color for organ donation so we had to spread the love and let him know we were thinking of him.

After the event wrapped up I rushed to change clothes, threw Max in the trailer and headed to the Oak Grove play day. Maximus is getting his barrel and pole pattern now so we're getting ready to speed things up! The remainder of my weekend consisted of working on my truck, finishing my trailer living quarter project, a great Easter Sunday church service and a very efficient Rounders practice.

Sunday night, I got a last minute call at 9:30pm asking if I could bring tack the Horse Tales event the following morning. Let me recap, Horse Tales for Literacy is a program where 4th graders read a book then get the opportunity to learn first hand about different aspects of horses by spending half a day rotating to different educational stations. Since I was a bit worn out and still had work to do I decided to get up early to get everything together.

After feeding for the morning, I loaded a ton of tack. It started to rain just as I finished loading. I hopped my truck, got ready to take off and remembered I had no windshield wiper fuse. Thank goodness I still have my trusty ole Buck Truck. As the skies opened up and it began to pour I transferred 7 loads of tack and other materials I was using to present, from one truck to the other. Soggy and grumpy, I got into my truck and headed for Lowell Elementary. My mood quickly dissolved because when I arrived the sweetest boy was there to help me trudge everything to the classroom, where I was to present for the day.

I spent the day talking to some 400 4th and 5th graders from area schools about tack and about my job as a rodeo queen. One of my favorite parts of presenting, is giving the kids a chance to ask questions because it is so interesting to hear about what they don't understand. Questions such as: "Does the mouth  hurt them?" "What is that made out of?" "What happens when the horse starts bucking?" were all pretty common and then I was asked "Are you married?" I told them "no" and the boy says "oh well you should meet my friend Jordan Peterson." Thankfully there was another question before I could respond because I was at a loss for words!

The school librarian and teacher assistants were all very hospitable and supplied snacks, water and lunch for the volunteers. I also had the chance to meet Robert and his trick horse, Frosty. He was so impressive! At the conclusion of the day, I cannot help but to look back and think about all of the little girls who tell you they want a horse. While most of the kids seemed to be interested, there are some that I can pick out that have the biggest stars in their eyes. Horse Tales is such an enlightening program and I am so priveleged to be a part of!