Emylie Parker sophomore, has been told her entire life what she can and can’t do, but one coach is determined to help her reach her goal of mounting a horse and prove that it doesn’t matter what others say.
Parker is a wheelchair bound student at Weber High School, due to a birth defect called Spina Bifida. This made it so Parker’s spine and spinal cord couldn’t form properly. Spina Bifida can be very severe, but despite her challenges Parker’s optimism overflows. “I don’t really struggle with it a whole lot,” she says. Despite the trials she experiences every day, she always looks on the bright side.
One of Parker’s biggest dreams is to ride and mount a horse by herself. She states, “I really love horses and I want to be able have my own horse, and ride them.” Parker has ridden horses in the past with an organization called Freedom Rider, which is a recreational horse-riding program for kids with disabilities. Founded in 1978, they hold an event pretty often and invite those who struggle with different challenges to come and ride horses. This program is mainly based on volunteer work to help give kids with disabilities opportunities. This is a therapeutic activity that help gives kids experiences they can’t usually get themselves. Parker loves going riding with Freedom Rider, but she has never reached her goal of mounting a horse on her own.
At the start of this year Parker met with Jack Poulte, a student teacher with Shane Hansen, and told him all about her goal. Poulte was formerly in the army until he got a severe head injury, after which he moved to Utah. “I had a professor at Weber State who has this program called CAPES. Its where you bring 60-70 kids with wide variety of disabilities.”
CAPES is a skill development initiative, devoted to helping kids with disabilities. This helped create Poulte’s goal to, “…make a difference and be an advocate for students with disabilities.” He finds a lot of importance in help those with disabilities know that there is no can’t, you can do anything if you put your mind to it.
Poulte later explains, “When she, Emilie Parker, told me that day that she wanted to push herself out of a wheelchair onto a horse. I was like, well might as well bring a real-life situation to the class. So, I brought a saddle.” He measured a real-life horse and brought in a saddle to help train Emylie in mounting a saddle. Poulte indicated that there are two biggest challenges to achieving a type of goal like this. First, the actual physical training. Second, the mental training. “… The biggest thing this saddle was for is to show that she can do it.” Poulte strongly believes that just because an individual has more struggles with something than others, doesn’t mean that they can’t succeed. “I don’t call it a disability; I call it a superpower.” Poulte expresses.
I don’t call it a disability; I call it a superpower.
— Jack Poulte
Every other day in second period Poulte and Parker train. They mostly work on her upper body. They practice doing chair pushups, biceps curls, etc. As well as training physically the two also focus on building up confidence and motivation. They are both going into territory they have never encountered before; this is where confidence is a vital part to achieve success. Parker says that her motivation is a girl who has inspired her. “Amberly Snider who is paralyzed from the waist down and she barrel races paralyzed, I like that and I want to be like her.” She looks up to Snider not only because she is chair bound but also because of
Snider´s determination to make her dreams a reality, despite her disability.