A 1998 Ardmore High School graduate has been shoeing horses for a living for the last seven months.
What’s so unusual about that? Not many women choose that line of work.
Teresa Delano graduated from Oklahoma State University in 2002 with a degree in animal science, with a minor in business. She had planned to go to veterinary school, but “I decided I didn’t want to be in school for the rest of my life.”
Delano, the daughter of Jim and Jeanne Delano of Ardmore, worked as an equestrian director for a youth camp in Kerrville, Texas, for a couple of years after graduation. Now she has partnered with JoAnn Westbrook and the women shoe horses.
“I was working a regular job and I wasn’t very happy,” Delano said. “I’ve known JoAnn since I was 11 or so. I was in 4-H with her daughters and we kind of grew up together riding horses. She made it look so easy. No, I’m just kidding.”
Westbrook told Delano she needed some help with her horse shoeing business and suggested Delano go to horse shoeing school.
“She’s been great ever since, showing me stuff and helping me out,” Delano said. “I’ve always loved horses. This is a way I can work with horses and have a job.”
Westbrook said she got into the profession when her husband got a job with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. She wasn’t happy with her job.
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“When he first got on, we were about to starve to death,” Westbrook said. “They didn’t pay very well. I was working a job that I was totally dissatisfied with, working inside all the time.”
Westbrook said she has been around horses since she was about six weeks old and she was looking for a job she would enjoy.
“I asked my dad if he thought I could shoe horses,” Westbrook said. “He said, ‘No, not even the toughest man can hold up to that.’ I waited a few months and I was so dissatisfied with my job, my husband and I came over to Oklahoma State Horseshoeing School (in Ardmore) and talked to them. My husband said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, do it. Give it a shot.’ ”
She was determined to make it work, and it has for 17 years. She was having some back and shoulder trouble, and that’s when she encouraged Delano to go to horse shoeing school to help her out.
“I guess God has blessed me with the health to stay with it,” Westbrook said. “It’s been a real enjoyable job for me, a passion, basically.”
The women shoe horses in parts of Carter, Garvin, Jefferson, Love, Murray and Stephens counties. They try to stay within about 50 miles of where they live, in Healdton.
Sheila J. Robinson, 221-6536
sheila.robinson@ardmoreite.com
