The Secret Life of McKenna: Riding, studying and saving the world
Junior blogger McKenna Oxenden reports on her most recent exploits, including her new role as an ambassador for JustWorld International.
From McKenna:
It’s 10:43 p.m. on Halloween, and I still have some studying left to finish up along with a shower to take. Instead of hanging out with some friends and being a loser (oops, I mean cool kid) and going trick-or-treating and knocking down old ladies (scratch that, asking nicely for candy), I decided to study for school and ride my horses.
As you can tell, I did in fact survive Hurricane Sandy. Ironically, I didn’t even lose power–OK, well, I did but for a whole whopping 10 seconds. However, we did have quite the river flowing in our backyard and street… I also got see firsthand what a sparking power line looks like and how the sky looks after a transformer explodes (it’s a bright blue flash across the whole sky if you wanted to know). As you can imagine, all of us were pretty worried about getting the ponies taken care of and making sure they were OK. I am pretty sure we were one of 25 people on the road–oops. Anyways, it got me out of two days of school so who cares!
I am pretty glad Sandy decided to hold off until Sunday night/Monday/Tuesday. I would have been prrreeetttttyyyyy upset if I was grooming at the three-day in the pouring rain. That’s right, kids, I groomed at the Waredaca Training Three-Day Event. And guess what guys? My rider placed 3rd! Ms. Katie Shiplett had a wonderful weekend all around; it was great to watch how far her and her horse have come since I left Brickland. It was a great experience to be able to help pretty much all weekend, especially on XC day. Ironically, I’ve never helped in a vet box or any sort of thing like that, so I was super excited to be able to experience something like that! Throughout the whole event, I just kept thinking to myself, “This looks like so much fun!” Hopefully Gigi and I can do it next year! I think she would totally eat it all up!
I also want to take a minute and just let everyone know that I am pleased to announce that I am an ambassador of JustWorld International. JustWorld has been featured on EN a few times, but unfortunately, we still only have five eventer ambassadors, including myself, three of whom are located on the west coast. For those of you who may not know what JustWorld is, it is the most amazing equestrian-meets-humanitarian organization. We act as catalyst to help countries in poverty. We help them in all aspects: food, hygiene, sports, arts and crafts, clothing… you name it, we do it.
There are over 450 ambassador members, and I repeat ONLY 5 ARE EVENTERS. Horse Nation, let’s change this. You don’t have to be an eventer, you don’t even have to show, but please check out JustWorld International. As of now, it is mainly just in the show jump world. Don’t you think this great organization deserves more recognition? I do! And I have big plans to help evolve JustWorld into the eventing mainstream, so HN, HELP ME OUT!!!!!!! Visit JustWorldInternational.org, and send the ever-lovely Amber Warren an email at awarren@
Happy (belated) Halloween and Go JustWorld!
Me and Dorito dressed up as the Pony Express a few years ago. We won first place!
Getting ready to "giddy up" and deliver mail.
Dressed like a "normal person" as the Pilsbury Doughboy when I was in 8th grade with my middle school friends.
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