United States Pony Clubs Staff Over the Years

By Sarah Evers Conrad, USPC Marketing and Communications Director

As USPC’s Director of Marketing, celebrating Pony Club’s 70^th Anniversary has led me to do a deep dive into the USPC archives to discover Pony Club’s history. In exploring Pony Club’s past, one of the most invaluable sources of information I found was the USPC newsletter. These black-and-white newsletters began in the 1970s, were officially named Pony Club News in the 1980s and turned into the magazine you know today Pony Club’s official member publication, Discover USPC, which is available as a print and digital edition. In exploring the news of the 1980s, I’ve discovered just how far we’ve come since the first computer was installed in Pony Club’s National Office during this decade (1983!) and gotten to know some of the people who helped shape Pony Club’s transition from a core of dedicated volunteers into a national organization with a full-time staff of professionals, of which I’m proud to be a part of.  Read on to meet some of the first staff members who helped Pony Club evolve during the 1980s, at the original USPC National Office location in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Volunteer Management

So many of you may already know about Alice Reidy, who was the Secretary of USPC for 20 years. (You can read more about her in the blog post “Longtime USPC Secretary Alice Reidy.”

Since 1956, Reidy had served as Secretary for the USPC. The volunteer role had technically been concerned with minutes and correspondence for the board. However, she had reinterpreted the responsibility to be one of taking complete care of the USPC minutiae, including handling applications, registrations, accomplishments, judging, event records, and standards. Without a doubt, Alice Reidy was more responsible than any other person for the way the USPC grew and developed during the first 20 years of its existence.

However, by 1974, Pony Club had grown so much that she simply could no longer devote the required energy, plus her basement file cabinets had long since filled to overflowing. USPC had 259 clubs in 22 regions serving 9,200 members. Reidy agreed to relinquish her file cabinets and help USPC move toward professional management.

Professional Management

George Helwig became first Executive Director for the ever-growing USPC in 1974. The files were trucked out of Reidy’s basement, and the official headquarters opened in West Chester, Penn. Reidy officially retired a year later.

Helwig’s involvement with Pony Club began many years before he became its full-time administrator. For over 20 years, he and his wife, Sally, contributed their time and skills to Pony Club members everywhere. In fact, he was District Commissioner (club leader) of Hudson Pony Club for seven years and Regional Supervisor (the regional leader) of Tri-State Region for one and a half years. He also organized the first National Tetrathlon Championships in 1974.

Upon hire, he was tasked with the day-to-day operation of the National Office. In addition to his supervisory role and fundraising efforts, he traveled on behalf of the national organization to relate firsthand to regions and clubs and work with other equestrian organizations. In fact, he became known for these travels and for his direct involvement in many activities.

In 1982, he and his wife chaperoned the USPC Tetrathlon team that traveled to England. Over several years, Helwig became involved in fundraising and public relations and helped introduce Pony Club to potential sponsors and possible new members. He also provided continuity to a volunteer organization in which an average of one-third of its volunteers were new each year. In this regard, he played a key role in recruiting new leaders.

In 1985, Helwig retired as USPC Executive Director. His accomplishments include helping the organization become more professional and standardized. Local clubs doubled during his tenure. USPC News was started. Training seminars for Examiners and Horse Management Judges were created.

Development of United States Pony Clubs Staff

Following Alice Reidy, the progression of USPC secretaries went from Anne Feine in 1974 to Corky Ross Mann, to Jeannie McAleer (who married during her staff tenure and changed her name to Knowlton, an A EV, from Pickering Hunt Pony Club. Knowlton was also a National Examiner and had been involved in the administration of the testing program since 1974. She also handled the book department.

Maggie McAleer (now Cappelli), another A from Pickering Hunt Pony Club, replaced her sister Jeannie on the United States Pony Clubs staff in the West Chester office in the early 1980s. Maggie McAleer provided administration and clerical support for the National Testing Committee, maintained appropriate testing records, processed incoming book orders, and filled requests for rally forms, rating certificates, specialized activity forms and pins.

When Knowlton was there in the 1970s, you also had Janet Brubaker, a one-time math major, with a BS in Animal Science, as bookkeeper. She also handled insurance and membership. Brubaker was a British Horse Society Assistant Instructor (BHSAI), had studied under numerous top dressage instructors, and had taught theory and activity courses in the Equestrian Studies programs of the University of Massachusetts and William Woods College, Mo. A USPC National Examiner, Brubaker enjoyed competing on her spare weekends in local dressage and combined training competitions.

In addition, Margot Sachey, an A alum and National Examiner, was USPC Coordinator of Instruction and Testing. Sachay spent five years as assistant director of a family-owned riding school on Long Island. There she helped write and direct a state-licensed assistant instructors course teaching theory, stable management, and riding. She held an American Horse Shows Association (AHSA, now the United States Equestrian Federation, USEF) judge’s license in hunters and jumpers and hunter seat equitation. Sachey filled the new position of USPC Coordinator of Instruction and Testing, designed to ease the burden of the Instruction Council. She sorted out candidates for B, H-A, and A tests, appointed National Examiners for the tests, and followed up on results. She also launched a countrywide search for knowledgeable horsemen and horsewomen who could become National Examiners. Sachey also planned to update and supplement the current list of educational materials available to Pony Club members and their instructors.

A new Bookkeeper/Membership Secretary, Marlene Cundall, wrapped up the final year of the decade. A resident of West Chester, Penn., Cundall has two children: a daughter, Cheryl, who was a recent graduate of Cornell University and employed in the environmental division of O’Brien and Gere Engineers, Inc. Syracuse, N.Y., and her son, Bob, who was pursuing an Engineering degree at Cornell University at the time.

The United States Pony Clubs Staff of the 1980s

Susan Giddings, an A-rated (now certified) Pony Club alum from England, joined the United States Pony Clubs staff by chance in 1980. At the end of a foxhunting vacation in the West Chester, Penn., area, she saw an advertisement for a secretary in the National Office. Out of curiosity, she applied and agreed to do some part-time work, but ended up in a full-time position. She became Assistant to the Executive Director a few years later. She would become the National Administrator in 1985, taking over from Helwig when he retired until 1989 when Michael C. Kromer became the next Executive Director.

A graduate A Pony Club alum from the Enfield Chace Hunt Branch in England, Giddings joined Pony Club when she was 12 years old. During her teens, she worked and studied at several local stables, attaining the British Horse Society’s Assistant Instructor certificate. She graduated from college with a Business Studies diploma. Giddings worked in many different areas before coming to the U.S. She ran her own livery (boarding) business, which involved schooling, teaching, and some buying and selling of horses. For eight years, she also managed a livery and stable with some 60 horses. This involved just about every facet of the horse business—from showing to racing. She enjoyed producing and working with young horses. Giddings was a keen competitor in Eventing and Show Jumping, and foxhunted whenever her busy schedule permit. She still enjoyed teaching, particularly coaching Pony Club members. Giddings believed that joining Pony Club was one of the best things that happened to her. She was delighted to be working for the organization.

Carol Urbanc, joined the staff in 1981 when the position of Publications Editor was created, later called the Public Relations/Publications Editor. She coordinated with 20 Activities and Instruction Committee Chairmen to produce USPC publications and rulebooks, in addition to editing Pony Club News, as Pony Club’s member magazine was first called for the Spring 1984 issue, and publishing the Annual Report and Annual Directory, along with supervising the office’s many mailings.

Prior to USPC, she was an editorial assistant for Practical Horseman magazine. She also worked at Pocono Downs Racetrack for six seasons during her summer breaks from high school and college. Urbanc graduated college with a degree in English from Albright College. However, after all her years of involvement within the horse industry, she remained one of the non-riding members of the staff.

Having grown up at a lake in upstate Pennsylvania, she instead enjoyed water sports, especially rowing and swimming. But she and her husband found themselves landscaping and gardening their property on weekends instead. Of her years at Pony Club, Urbanc felt that the quality and dedication of USPC volunteers with whom she worked to be praiseworthy indeed. In my current role as Marketing and Communications Director

I can totally relate to her position here as a lot of that is what the Marketing staff and I do. I also totally agree with her comment about the dedication of the volunteers for Pony Club. I’ve never seen such an amazingly dedicated group as Pony Club volunteers.

Next to fill the Bookkeeper/Membership Secretary position after Cundall was Dolores Parker, who joined the staff as Membership Secretary only in October 1980. Parker kept current membership card files and Green Sheet club membership lists and handled Pony Club insurance records. But within a short time, her responsibilities expanded to include bookkeeping and maintenance of financial records. Over the years, her job evolved to focus solely on bookkeeping, as well as invoicing of orders for publications.

A graduate of Kent State University in Ohio with a BS in Math Education, Parker and her husband, Doug, moved to the West Chester area in 1968 when Doug began a teaching career at Cheyney University. They had two children—Martin, who was a graduate of Georgetown University, and Debbie, who went to Guilford College in North Carolina. Although she knew very little about horses, Parker enjoyed working with Pony Club volunteers. Her own volunteer time was given to London Grove Friends Meeting, where she serves as a clerk. She also enjoyed aqua kinetics and, along with her husband, modern western square dancing.

The year 1983 was an exciting one as the National Office was advancing into the computer age and seeking grants for the funding to purchase its first computer to help maintain the ever-growing number of club and membership files, to facilitate fundraising, and to compute other office functions. The purchase was made shortly thereafter.

National Testing and Beyond

From 1980 to 1985, Maggie Rittenhouse ably managed administration of the National Testing program and the publications department for more than five years. In 1985, she moved on to a new opportunity.

She was followed by Annette Murphy, a BHSI and an A graduate of the New Forest branch of the British Pony Club. Murphy had brought good secretarial skills to the position, as well as a strong Pony Club background, until she ended her tenure to help her husband with their family business

Around 1985–1986, Helen Fitzsimmons joined the staff as Mailings and Records Secretary to handle address changes, maintain computer data for mailing lists, answer calls, and she would later become the Sustaining Membership Secretary.

Bonnie Sheldrake, former DC of Radnor Hunt Pony Club, assumed the temporary position of 1986 Festival Secretary and worked in the National Office until 1987 to help coordinate plans, process entry forms, and answer direct inquiries regarding the upcoming Festival.

In 1986, staff moved to another building in the West Chester area, this time off of U.S. Route 202 at the intersection with South Matlack Street.

At this time, the position of Assistant to the National Administrator and National Testing Coordinator was created, with Margaret Smith taking the role in 1987. Working with the National Testing Committee Chairman, Smith was responsible for organizing the National Testing program. Prior to that, she was Vice President of Instruction for three years, served on the USPC Board of Governors, and was one of the original staff members when the National Office moved to West Chester in 1972.

Smith got her start with horses after inheriting her brother’s Welsh Pony when she was 4 years old. She passed her B as a member of the Old Surrey and Burstow Branch of the British Pony Club. However, a family move to a new area thwarted a long-standing ambition to attend Pony Club camp. Point-to-point racing was a popular use for fit hunters at the end of the season in those days,  and Smith rode for one season before selling her horse to go to college. Settling in Pennsylvania in the 1960s, a belated wedding present in the shape of a Welsh Pony joined the couple, and later other Welsh Ponies moved in with her family, which would later include three children. She had since served in many capacities before joining the National Office—groom, coach, course builder, DC, and member of the Board of Governors. Pony Club was a family affair for the Smiths. One of Smith’s daughters graduated as an A, the other as a B, and her son was also a member of Pony Club.

Around this time, Ellen Swartwout had been hired to process paperwork and answer queries relating to both the National Testing Program and the book order department. She later was named National Testing Secretary and worked with Smith. She was also the a Pony Club parent and served as Treasurer of Brandywine Hounds Pony Club in the Eastern Pennsylvania Region.

After a staff restructure, Kathy Messner became Office Secretary, combining the work of previous part-timers. Among general office duties, she processed hold harmless agreements, supervised the USPC video library, and filled requests for new club packets.

Amy Lewis, who was a Pony Club member as a youth and later a Pony Club mom of two—as well as an active volunteer, competitor, and boarding barn owner—joined the staff part-time in the late 1980s as Membership/Publications Secretary, where she maintained junior membership records and ratings and packaged book and pin orders for shipment.

Lewis’ first exposure to Pony Club began as a child in Wilton, Conn., through family and friends who shared their love of horses. Her mother rode at the Wilton Riding Club, where she was taught by Ada Maude Thompson, an advocate of the Canadian Pony Club. During their own childhood days, Lewis’ mother, aunts, and their cousins and friends became part of a  group that eventually became the Wilton Pony Club in the 1950s. Shortly before Lewis’ family moved from the area, she received her Pony Club pin.

The next phase of her Pony Club career came several years later when her own two little girls became pony crazed. As her daughters Pam and Maria progressed through Pony Club, so did Lewis as she moved from local and regional involvement to serving on national committees. Both daughters became H-A alums of Radnor Hunt Pony Club in Chester County, Penn., where Lewis ran a small boarding stable. Her 21-year-old leopard Appaloosa, Polychromic, reigned over the stable and did everything but hunt politely! The third phase of Lewis’ Pony Club career began when she joined the National Office staff.

In 1989, Sandy Uhler was added as National Testing Secretary, and by then Swartwout had become Festival Secretary. I hope to learn more about Swartwout as we get into the 1990s newsletters.

The 1980s saw many changes for Pony Club, even more to come as the organization continued to grow in the decades to come. Stay tuned for more Pony Club history as we celebrate the past and the people who have made USPC the organization that it is today.  

For any additions or corrections to this information about the United States Pony Clubs staff, or to share your memories of your experiences with the United States Pony Clubs, please email marketing@ponyclub.org. We always love to hear your stories!