OklahomaHorses Magazine July 2022

22 OklahomaHorses • July / August 2022 Ride for the Ranch OSU Ranch Horse Team Competes Nationally by Lindsay Humphrey | Photos by Madelyn Owens T aking the show industry by storm in the last few years, the ranch horse has found its way out of the pasture and into the spotlight. Most recently, it has come to Stillwater as the Oklahoma State University Ranch Horse Team competed in its first national competition in 2022. As the only land-grant university in Oklahoma, it was only a matter of time before OSU had a ranch horse team of its own. Housed through the Ferguson Col- lege of Agriculture in the Department of Food and Animal Science, the team faced monumental challenges from day one. “When I was looking at colleges, I loved the academia at Oklahoma State and all the hands-on opportunities the equine unit had to offer,” said Megan Newlon, a founding member of the team. “However, there was no ranch horse team. Always looking for a challenge, I thought, ‘Okla- homa is horse country. Why isn’t there a ranch horse team?’ And that’s exactly what I set off to do.” Hailing from Hugoton, Kansas, Newlon got her start with horses first in rodeo, then 4-H, and finally ended up on the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) show circuit. That’s where she first met Sierra Walter, a cofounder of the OSU Ranch Horse Team. “I always thought that if I went to OSU, I would like to contribute to starting the [ranch horse team],” said Walter, who grew up in Hydro. “When I got to OSU in the fall of 2019, I knew I wanted to do that, but I didn’t have the vision or plan on how to do it. I ran into Megan, who is now my dear friend, and she had the same desire.” A whole lot of footwork, meetings, and a pandemic later, and the OSU Ranch Horse Team has left its mark at the inaugural National Intercollegiate Ranch and Stock Horse Association National Show. Charge the Mountain Finding students who wanted to be involved with the team was the easy part of getting the club off the ground in early 2020. Everything that followed gave the founding members and their adviser, Ma- rissa Chapa, a run for their money. “It took about a year from starting the team to actually competing, and part of that was because we tried to start it in the middle of a pandemic,” Chapa said. “It took a lot of time to get everything sorted out from a legal standpoint with the university. Finding the right people for each facet of the approval process was difficult, especially since we were starting from ground zero.” Walter’s enthusiasm, coupled with Newlon’s leadership and tenacity, kept the team on track when it would have been easy to give up. Newlon is now serving as president, with Walter at her side as vice Members of the competitive team of the OSU Ranch Horse Team are (from left) JT Danielecki, Kathryn Moore, SierraWalter, Vivienne Sander, and Amy D’Epagnier.