The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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November 2, 2009

<img src=" http://www.joplinglobeonline.com/images/zope/monday.gif" border=0> Oklahoma: Trainer faces life’s challenges head on

STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) — Jennifer Cunningham takes her joy from family, her passion from horses and her strength from her faith.

But she takes her creed from a favorite children’s film.

“One simple motto I like to live by is from the movie Nemo — ’just keep swimming!’ “ said Cunningham. “I like to say that on tough days just keep swimming because that’s all any of us can do. Just keeping moving, just keep trying.”

Cunningham has had her share of tough days.

Between the births of now-6-year-old Keaton and baby Falyn, born in June, Jennifer and her husband, Ty, lost a set of twins and another baby. When Keaton was a toddler Jennifer suffered a devastating leg injury while playing softball that required a lot of down time and several surgeries.

“That took me out for 2 1/2 years,” she said of the August 2004 injury and ensuing ordeal. “I wasn’t even walking normally again until the middle of 2006. I spent an entire football season walking on a broken ankle. I had surgery the Monday after the last football game.”

She started this football season on the sidelines, recuperating from skeletal injuries suffered while giving birth to Falyn.

“I’ve had 10 surgeries over the last five or six years,” Jennifer said. “That’s why I haven’t been riding.”

More than a bit inconvenient for the woman who, with husband Ty, supervises Oklahoma State University’s Spirit Riders team. They also are caretakers and trainers for Bullet, the American quarter horse gelding that charges onto the field at Boone Pickens Stadium with every Oklahoma State Cowboy touchdown.

They both have extensive experience with the spirit team. Ty, a Jay High School graduate and now 33, was Oklahoma State’s Spirit Rider his senior year and Jennifer, a Sand Springs native and now 30, was Spirit Rider her senior year as well. The couple both earned bachelor degrees in animal science at Oklahoma State.

The Sand Springs couple puts that to work in their horse operation. It’s Ty’s help with the team and at home that promotes Jennifer’s success as a mom, a Spirit Team coordinator, a rancher and a drafting designer at her parents’ company that designs sprinkler systems for commercial buildings, she said.

Her parents, Ernie and Wilma Roberts, who board Bullet at their Tulsa cutting horse ranch, also contribute, Jennifer said.

My mom will pick my daughter up from school for me a couple of days a week or come over and hold the baby while I’m doing laundry,” said Jennifer, who is still months from full recovery from her childbirth injuries. “Ty and I help each other. We make everything a team effort.”

That includes horse training when Jennifer is healthy, judging or assisting judges as ring stewards in horse shows, working with Bullet and the team and managing to work in family vacations to Disney World or ski slopes when schedules allow.

“We do it all with our children at our sides,” Jennifer said. “They truly always are with us. We are rarely apart. We pretty much do everything as a family.”

That alone calls for balancing in a world of horses, jobs and Spirit Riders. Oh, and school for dad Ty, who teaches agriculture education at Kellyville High School.

“I hope my children learn from my actions the way I learned from my parents’ actions, Cunningham said. “My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was 14 and I watched her get up every day and at least try to face the day.

“Some days were worse than others, but she still got out of bed and went to work and tried to face the day,” she said. “She has been cancer free for 15 years now.”

As Cunningham heals from her own physical challenges now, she has plans. They include horses.

“I haven’t shown a cutting horse or entered a rodeo in seven years because of pregnancy, motherhood, injuries and illness,” she said. “But my show days are certainly not over. I have two barrel horse prospects in the barn and a cutting mare and gelding reading and waiting for me to heal.”

Her love of horses, obviously shared by her husband, is planting a seed in the heart of her daughter Keaton as well.

“Keaton rode her first horse with someone when she was 10 weeks old,” Jennifer said. “I have pictures of her cutting teeth on bridle reins when she was 9 months old. She’s always been on a horse but we don’t make her ride horses. If she asks to ride she gets to ride. She doesn’t have to ride.”

But already Keaton, in her 6-year-old way, is a part of the Spirit Rider team. She knows the rules, She goes to the games. And she is a special friend of Bullet.

She’s not alone.

“We are compensated monetarily and we treat it as a job, but we are rewarded personally because of the lives this horse touches,” Jennifer said. “He creates lasting memories for the students involved in the program and we love getting to know the students as part of our family.”

“People just love that horse,” Jennifer said. “He’s a celebrity. I tell Ty the next thing I’m going to do is teach him to talk for himself.”



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