Although I was born in Los Angeles, California, my roots are in Missouri. Both of my parents were born in Overland, not too far from where Lambert International Airport is presently located. My paternal grandmother remembered going to the St. Louis Worlds Fair in 1904 many times. My great grandfather landscaped the fair's floral clock. In 1993, the year of the Great Flood, I, with my husband and daughter, moved to our farm in the Strain-Japan School District where we currently live.
A great deal of life happened before our move. I grew up a city girl in a suburb of Los Angeles, and I was crazy about horses. I knew wanted to work with horses from an early age, but I faced much discouragement from my parents. I attended elementary and high school like other kids, was active in the Girl Scouts, and went on to college in my hometown. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, had previously been the Arabian horse ranch of cereal magnate W. K. Kellogg. Mr. Kellogg donated the ranch to the state of California for the purpose of establishing a college of engineering and agriculture with the condition that the school must continue breeding and raising Arabian horses. Although I chose Education as my major, I worked toward a minor in Agriculture, and took every class dealing with horses that the university offered. I spent nearly all my free time at the Horse Unit, as it was called in those days, and eventually was one of two young women hired as the first females to work on the feed crew at any of the animal units. Part of our salary was room (but not board) at the Horse Unit, and I actually lived in a converted box stall for three years from the end of my freshman year until I graduated.
I quickly packed up and headed for Benenden, England where I attended riding school. I was lucky to have found a riding instructor during my university years who had taught at the Benenden Riding Establishment. She recommended it as a quality place to lean to ride cross county and jump solid fences. While staying there eleven months as a working pupil, I earned my Horsemasters Certificate with the British Horse Society.
As much as I enjoyed my time in Europe, I was glad to be back in the United States. Culture shock occurs even when living in a country that speaks the same language, and I was quite homesick. Luckily, I got a job managing a riding academy a few days after returning home. I worked there about three years before opening my own riding academy. For another sixteen years, I taught people of all ages how to ride and show horses. Meanwhile, I kept moving farther and farther away from the city and ended up in the town of Apple Valley in the Mojave Desert. I met Jerry Slaby, and we were married about ten months later. We finally had a daughter whom we named Hope because we had hoped for her for so long. By the time she started school, the town was encroaching on our five acres of horse heaven, and we felt we needed more "elbow room." More significantly, I was developing minor alergies to the horses and major allergies to the grasses and pollens carried by the ever-present desert winds. I needed to move out of the desert to a moister climate with less wind and get an indoor job. That's why I returned to my family's roots as I mentioned at the start of this narrative.
On February 1, 1994, I started working at Strain-Japan R-16 School as a Title 1 Aide under the direction of Mrs. Linda Muschany. I hadn't been in the school three months before I realized teaching children in an academic environment was what I wanted to do. After several starts and stops, I became a Certified Teacher in the state of Missouri, and received my Master's degreen in Education. I moved into the Middle School Math and Science position in 2002, and I have never regreted that decision. I have always been surprised that after following my childhood dream for nearly 20 years, I found I enjoyed teaching math and science even more! I have now worked in my second field more years than in my first.
A great deal of life happened before our move. I grew up a city girl in a suburb of Los Angeles, and I was crazy about horses. I knew wanted to work with horses from an early age, but I faced much discouragement from my parents. I attended elementary and high school like other kids, was active in the Girl Scouts, and went on to college in my hometown. California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, had previously been the Arabian horse ranch of cereal magnate W. K. Kellogg. Mr. Kellogg donated the ranch to the state of California for the purpose of establishing a college of engineering and agriculture with the condition that the school must continue breeding and raising Arabian horses. Although I chose Education as my major, I worked toward a minor in Agriculture, and took every class dealing with horses that the university offered. I spent nearly all my free time at the Horse Unit, as it was called in those days, and eventually was one of two young women hired as the first females to work on the feed crew at any of the animal units. Part of our salary was room (but not board) at the Horse Unit, and I actually lived in a converted box stall for three years from the end of my freshman year until I graduated.
I quickly packed up and headed for Benenden, England where I attended riding school. I was lucky to have found a riding instructor during my university years who had taught at the Benenden Riding Establishment. She recommended it as a quality place to lean to ride cross county and jump solid fences. While staying there eleven months as a working pupil, I earned my Horsemasters Certificate with the British Horse Society.
As much as I enjoyed my time in Europe, I was glad to be back in the United States. Culture shock occurs even when living in a country that speaks the same language, and I was quite homesick. Luckily, I got a job managing a riding academy a few days after returning home. I worked there about three years before opening my own riding academy. For another sixteen years, I taught people of all ages how to ride and show horses. Meanwhile, I kept moving farther and farther away from the city and ended up in the town of Apple Valley in the Mojave Desert. I met Jerry Slaby, and we were married about ten months later. We finally had a daughter whom we named Hope because we had hoped for her for so long. By the time she started school, the town was encroaching on our five acres of horse heaven, and we felt we needed more "elbow room." More significantly, I was developing minor alergies to the horses and major allergies to the grasses and pollens carried by the ever-present desert winds. I needed to move out of the desert to a moister climate with less wind and get an indoor job. That's why I returned to my family's roots as I mentioned at the start of this narrative.
On February 1, 1994, I started working at Strain-Japan R-16 School as a Title 1 Aide under the direction of Mrs. Linda Muschany. I hadn't been in the school three months before I realized teaching children in an academic environment was what I wanted to do. After several starts and stops, I became a Certified Teacher in the state of Missouri, and received my Master's degreen in Education. I moved into the Middle School Math and Science position in 2002, and I have never regreted that decision. I have always been surprised that after following my childhood dream for nearly 20 years, I found I enjoyed teaching math and science even more! I have now worked in my second field more years than in my first.