EvyJo Compton
Emma Gray
Editor
“I’m going to Parkland for general studies and I am part time at the [University of Illinois]…I’m in what’s called the Parkland Pathway, so you take the majority of your classes at Parkland and then you take at least one class at the U of I, no more than six credit hours. When you’re done getting your general studies degree you then get a guaranteed spot at the U of I in your major. So for me it would be animal science.
To be a vet you have to have some kind of science background or animal background so I chose animal science…
I’ve decided to be a large animal veterinarian. I would treat horses, cows, sheep– you name it. I would love to also go to a farrier school down in Oklahoma. Once I have obtained both degrees—veterinarian and farrier—I would open up a practice where I would rescue abused animals, and then turn them into therapy animals for disabled persons.
I’ve always really, really liked animals, ever since I was little. I grew up with cats, dogs, and chickens. Then, around nine or ten years old I got my first horse and I’ve had horses ever since. I thought, ‘Why not become a vet and return the favor for everything they’ve given to me.’ I’ve wanted to be a vet since I was in fifth grade…
[I have] two [horses]. I’ve had horses for nine years. My first horse, Cassie, passed away in October 2015. I’ve owned my horse Lucky since she was a baby. I trained her from foal to the riding horse [she is] now. I adopted Sunshine in August 2016 to be a companion to Lucky.
I’m also a volunteer at Society for Hooved Animals’ Rescue and Emergency, which is a horse rescue outside of Dewey, Ill. I’ve been volunteering there for six, maybe more, years…What I’ve been doing for the past six years is I go, either in the morning or the night, to feed. We feed and water them and put them to bed. If there’s time left, we brush them or we walk them around.
We don’t really do any of the riding because at the moment all they have is really abused horses, so we don’t want to put someone on a horse and then [the horse] gets injured because we didn’t know [it] wasn’t broke to ride or it has scars from its past life…
[The rescue] does a lot of open houses, where we, the volunteers, go and the public can come. They can meet the horses; they can brush ponies, ride the draft horses. There’s face painting and stuff like that. They also have a dinner every year that people can go to and buy horse-y stuff.”