Memorial horse show set for June 24 and 25
By Tracy Ouellette
SLN Staff
For the past eight years, the West 20 Ranch and Saddle Co. in East Troy has hosted a horse show fundraiser in honor of the owner’s mother, Jean Cyra.
Each year, the two-day event raises funds and awareness for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
“My mom knew a lot of people in the area and was such an advocate for children,” Julie Cyra said. “She worked a lot with special needs kids, particularly kids with autism. She was a foster parent and adoptive parent of special needs kids.”
Cyra said her mother was instrumental in helping area families with special needs children and often helped them work with the area school districts to ensure their children were given every opportunity available.
“She would help with mainstreaming kids or help parents develop an IEP (individualized education program) with the schools. It can be intimidating for parents of special needs kids when dealing with the schools. She helped with that.”
Cyra said her mother was an advocate of education for everyone, as she believed it was the way to a better life.
“She was always very encouraging to the young people in the area,” Cyra said. “She promoted education and often encouraged people to go back to school.”
When her mother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, she lost her kidneys because of the tests.
“They used contrast dye for a scan,” Cyra said. “She lost her kidneys because of that and ended up on dialysis too.”
Cyra said it was a difficult time and losing her mother was hard.
“She always supported me,” she said. “When we first started, she let us run the saddle shop out of a garage on her farm. She did so much for so many people, I wanted to honor her and the show is a way to do that.
Cyra said the proceeds from the show will go to multiple myeloma research as it has in the past and help raise awareness of blood cancers.
“Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the blood plasma and many people haven’t even heard of it,” she said. “Research is gaining a lot of ground in blood cancers and a lot of the research in multiple myeloma also benefits other blood cancers. It’s important to us to help further that.”
Cyra said the memorial horse show is a family event and features multiple events, including speed classes such as barrel racing on Sunday afternoon.
“We have classed from Tiny Tot all the way up to Senior Seniors, so there’s an age group for everybody,” she said. “We’ve got about $20,000 in prizes to give away, too.
“The prizes are donated by my manufacturers. We have boots, jeans, hats, western art, a saddle, western jewelry … there’s a lot. The class prizes are based on who entered the class, not who wins it. We have ribbons for that, but the class prize can be won by anyone in the class.
The two-day event is open to the public and spectators are encouraged to watch the competitions.
“We don’t charge for people to come and watch the shows,” Cyra said. “We want people to come and see what’s going on and have fun with us. It’s really a family event. We have food stands on the grounds and different classes all day long for both days. Kids love to watch.”
The events begin at 9 a.m. each day and to enter a class, it’s just $5.
“We want it to be affordable for everyone,” Cyra said. “We want to keep people together and coming back to participate. We have entire families who come back year after year.”
For more information, about Multiple myeloma, visit www.multiplemyeloma.org.
For more information about West 20 Ranch and Saddle Co., visit west20.com.
