March 11, 2006 – Cypress Lakes Benefit Ride

BEHS member Carrie Isaacks sponsored a benefit trail ride at Cypress Lakes.

Many non-BEHS members attended the event and had a wonderful time riding their horses through the beautiful settings and raising money for the horses of BEHS.

March 2006 – ChiliFest – Johnson City, Texas

BEHS member "Papa" Joe Summy sponsored a booth for BEHS to hand out info at the Texas State Men’s Chili & BBQ Cook-off in Johnson City. BEHS volunteers spoke to several people interested in rescue – and got to eat some great chili, too!

March 2006 – Glenn Bird Clinic – Navasota, Texas

Clinician and trainer Glenn Bird put on a fabulous training clinic for BEHS horses and their foster homes. He emphasized repetition, consistency, experience and "in the moment" when working with horses, and he helped foster homes learn to work with their foster horses.

April 8, 2006 – Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine Open House – College Station, Texas

Laura Senseman set up the booth and Jennifer and Spencer Williams took over from her around lunchtime. During the open house, A&M’s Veterinary School opens their doors to the public where they get to visit the anatomy and physiology labs, meet cloned animals and much more. Visitors to the open house also get to talk to representatives from horse, dog, wildlife, horse and other rescues. Laura, Jennifer and Spencer talked to many people about fostering and adopting and handed out plenty of BEHS paperwork!

April 15, 2006 – BEHS Get-Together – Alvin, Texas

BEHS President Jennifer Williams and Director Spencer Williams welcomed BEHS members to their house for a get-together. It was a great time to chat about both personal horses and foster horses and eat tons of excellent food!

April 2006 – Waterson Ranch Cowgirl Rodeo

BEHS members put together a great booth at this annual event. Pam showed off Bluebonnet horses with notebooks she created, and Jenni brought homemade cookies that were a big draw! The volunteers spoke to many interested people – and probably earned us a few new members!

April 23, 2006 ~ Open Horse Show - Boyd, TX

True to form, Wendy and Mearl Taylor put on a great horse show. The turnout was great, and competitors report having a blast showing their horses.

Not only was the show a great way to introduce many horsepeople to BEHS, but it was a wonderful fundraising event!

Thank you again to Shirley Barnett and her son Cody—a great team. Shirley judged the show and Cody acted as Ring Steward. These two drove all the way down from Oklahoma to help with this show and offered to do it again.

July 4, 2006 – Annual 4th of July Party at Windy Hill – Niederwald, Texas

Regina Anderson hosted her annual 4th of July party for BEHS members. Everyone had a great time eating good food, visiting and talking about their horses.

May 6, 2006 ~ Annual Golfing Fore Pets Tournament - Austin, TX

Despite a wet, thunderous start to the morning, approximately 50 golfers braved the elements to take part in the 3^rd Annual Golfing Fore Pets Tournament on May 6, 2006. The course dried out sufficiently to ensure some good play by the 1:30 pm start but the last team did have to be called in early due to more thunderstorms rolling through the Austin area in the late afternoon and early evening. Lightning and golf courses definitely do not mix, so the tournament organizers deferred to the golf pro’s judgment and allowed the tournament to end early.

BEHS members, Ari Pettigrew and Kelly Jones, were on hand to help spread the word about BEHS and to volunteer for the tournament. Kelly seemed to be a pro when it came to persuading golfers to buy mulligans (that’s basically a "do over" for those of you who don’t golf—wouldn’t it be nice to have them in the show jumping arena?!), throws (for those golfers that decided a baseball pitch might get them closer to the green) and string (for those that needed a little help with their putting).

However, the golfers all seemed to enjoy the tournament and stayed around long after bidding on silent auction items and eat dinner. The top selling item was a small bronze statue of a nude that Ari Pettigrew had donated—apparently it’s now gracing a law office.

May 7, 2006 ~ Open Horse Show, Adopt-A-Thon, Silent Auction ~ Trinity Valley Expo, Liberty, TX

The rescue halter class had plenty of entries and our very own Geronimo won the class, going on to take Reserve Champion Halter Horse, for which he competed against several non-rescue horses. Congratulations to Geronimo and to his foster home and handler, Julie Bradley.

The show ran smoothly and Bluebonnet made a positive impression on the attendees, several of whom had such a great time that they promised to come to the next Bluebonnet show.

Funds were raised through not only the show itself, but also through the silent auction, concession stand and information booth.

Thank you to Jennifer and Spencer Williams, Alex and Christopher Scott, Laura Kaptain, Taylor Lehr, Julie Bradley, Loretta Pinnell, Mandi, Bob, Robby and Dillon Conaway, Kenna and Kami Graves, Tina Shalmy, Denise Crosthwait, Pam Archung, Enes Balandran, Laura Senseman, Tricia and Michael Gilbreth, Kelly Bolinger, Courtney Anderson, Tifney Wilsford, Kathy Fraser and Jodi Luecke.

Special thanks to Marianne Skarpa for her enormous efforts in making this happen and to Steven Skarpa of Skarpa Insurance Agency for sponsoring our show.

May 20, 2006 – Glenn Bird Clinic – Navasota, Texas

Glenn Bird came back to Navasota for another clinic – this time with foster horses, adoptive horses and even horses owned by rescue members. He spent time teaching horses groundwork and teaching their handlers how to be more consistent, and he even climbed on board a few to give them a test ride. Everyone who attended learned a lot!

July 4, 2006 – BEHS July 4th Party – Neiderwald, Texas