Natalea Watkins Is the Board Treasurer, Center Rep, a PATH Intl Registered Riding Instructor

Natalea Watkins is the Board Treasurer, Center Rep, a PATH Intl Registered Riding Instructor, Mentor and ESMHL at Turning Point Ranch, a Premier Accredited Center in Stillwater, Oklahoma.She was literally on the sidelines as Turning Point held its first sessions in the Fall of 2000.Six months earlier, Natalea left the large quarter horse ranch she owned with her husband near Stillwater and sustained a spinal cord injury when her Explorer hydroplaned off the highway in a driving rainstorm.She hoped to ride at Turning Point but ended up doing everything but ride.

She returned to work as the Assistant V.P. for Communications at Oklahoma State University where she won the President’s Award and the Loyal and True Award for outstanding service.The Communicator of the Year Award for Oklahoma College and University Public Relations Association is named for her.

Natalea is an “all in” kind of person.In 2011, she drove by herself the 13 hours to Baton Rouge to attend the Region 8/ LSTEN Conference and as the only Oklahoman there, was asked to join the LSTEN Board. Two years later, Turning Point hosted the Region in Stillwater with a surprising turnout.She’s served as the Oklahoma Chair or co-chair since 2011 – helping other centers work towards Premier accreditation and keeping in touch with centers and instructors around the state.

This Spring, she baked her first cherry pie ever to support a Rotary Contest raising funds for Turning Point.Her pie won the Grand Prize and then she remembered she forgot to pit the cherries.She goes on most horse intake evals for Turning Point and when a mini horse turned out to be a perfect candidate for the program, let the horse walk up the ramp into her van beside her wheelchair and ride the 45 minutes to his new home.She’s such a fixture at Turning Point that a rider spotting her at Wal-Mart circled her wheelchair and demanded to know “where are the horses?”Taking pictures, making nametags, ordering t-shirts, doing endless paperwork and writing grants are just a few of the “behind the scenes” jobs she handles for Turning Point where she has a reputation of emailing people at 2 a.m.Even she describes herself as “relentless” where Turning Point is concerned.

Therapeutic Riding is actually a third career for Natalea.She graduated from Oklahoma State in the early 1970’s, working her way through college doing news at two different radio stations.She became the first female news anchor at KWTV in Oklahoma City and then worked in television news in Buffalo, Columbus, Philadelphia, Charlotte and Baltimore (where she supervised a young newscaster named Oprah Winfrey.)In 1990, Natalea returned to Oklahoma to head communications for OSU and serve on the university Executive Group.She has participated on more than 20 non-profit boards including United Way in five different communities.She currently serves on the Oklahoma Transition Council for her district, addressing the preparation of individuals with disabilities as they age out of the school system.

Natalea lost her husband in December after a four-year battle with colon cancer.In her spare time, she is active in a Book Club and has taken up water colors – starting to paint her way through the Turning Point herd.She is a Noni to three granddaughters and one on the way.

Cathryn Christensen, an Oklahoma Native, found her calling south of the border while living in Texas.After starting a new job in an unfamiliar town, she began looking for a place to connect with horse lovers like herself.Or as she says, "a group of people whose eyes don't glaze over when she started talking about picking hooves or pitching hay."She began volunteering at a large therapeutic riding center in Keller, TX but having never worked with those with special needs, she asked if she could just work with the horses.But the first week, when the center ran short on sidewalkers, she was recruited.After that she was hooked!

Following a move back to her home town of Morrison, OK, she went looking for the same outlet and at that time there wasn't really any therapeutic riding centers in the area.She contacted a center in Coyle about 45 minutes away and started volunteering there.The exact opposite of the center in Texas, the center in Coyle was very small and they needed a certified instructor onsite.Cathryn stepped up and started the road to certification.After getting her certification in 2002, she began working with the center in Coyle but about this time a center was restarting in Stillwater and Cathryn came on board as their certified (and only) instructor.This started Cathryn's calling to work with multiple centers and helping them grow and became a precursor to her role as LSTEN board member and PATH Region 8 co-coordinator for the state of Oklahoma.

Because of her thirst for knowledge and the advisory role she often takes, Cathryn has developed a significant resource of information and tools to aid instructors and centers and she shares this willingly with other centers.She has also developed several websites for centers and events.She co-developed the new lsten.net website for the region and often assists with marketing and social media campaigns for the region and the state.

And to support Cathryn in her volunteer activities, she works full time in a “real” job.She has served most of her career in the financial services industry in one form or another.Then she spent about 10 years in the Grant Administration world at Oklahoma State University.During this time she was also asked to serve on the Oklahoma State University Rodeo Team Booster Board for 4 years and as the OSU Rodeo Team Advisor for 4 years.This time culminated in one of the things she is most proud of and that is being a part of bringing the first paid coach to the OSU Rodeo team in its 65 plus year history.

Her experience with these non profits as well as others afforded her some very unique and wonderful experiences.In 2007 after a random phone call, she was able to coordinate the largest equine entrant in the official Oklahoma Centennial Parade which represented all of rodeo in Oklahoma and she was able to meet some of the true legends of rodeo such as Clem McSpadden.She has also been able to meet other legends such as Tom Selleck, Lynn Anderson, Baxter Black, Rex Linn, Barry Corbin, Temple Grandin, Buck Taylor, Michael Martin Murphy, Finest Smith (main stunt double for John Wayne), and Earnest Borgnine.She has also been the rodeo coordinator on the movie Cowgirls and Angels and if you watch carefully, you will see a brief glimpse of her in the movie and much of her “cowgirl stuff” was used in the movie.

She left Oklahoma State University and now works as the Office Manager for a major furniture store in Stillwater, does the books for a large veterinary hospital and day care, serves on the board of her church, and continues to work with therapeutic riding centers around the region by mentoring, training, website development, and more.

She continues to share her passion for Therapeutic riding along with her other favorite topics: three of them in fact.Her three nephews are the light of her life as she has never been blessed with children of her own.The two-legged kind, that is.She has a four-legged child named Brodie, a six year old border collie.She is an avid Oklahoma State University fan and channels her great grandmother through the art of crochet.