Hopes to develop an outdoor activities lodge for children are riding on the back of a registered Quarter Horse named Dancer.
The 2-year-old filly — registered as Zaneslastdance — is the prize in the “Dancer the Dream Horse” drawing for the Beau Arndt Foundation, an organization founded to honor the memory of Christine and Bob Arndt’s oldest son. Beau Arndt was killed Dec. 15, 2007, by a Topeka man who was hunting illegally — poaching — from the road in his pickup truck.
The shot from Theron Thomas Kent struck the teen as he lay tucked in a duck blind during a morning hunt on a friend’s property not far from the Arndts’ home. The young man died at the scene.
Kent was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, unlawful hunting and unlawful discharge of a firearm and was sentenced to prison on Aug. 12, 2008. He is serving the sentence at Lansing Penitentiary, with an earliest-possible release date on Nov. 18 of this year.
“When it happened,” Christine Arndt said of her son’s death, “I thought, ‘His death is not going to be in vain.’”
Friends, acquaintances and strangers agreed, helping out with memorial donations and ongoing fundraisers that enabled the family to establish the Beau Arndt Love of the Outdoors scholarship at Emporia State University, where Beau was a freshman student. Organizations and businesses joined the effort, which enabled the foundation to sponsor hunter-safety classes and special days outdoors for youngsters to promote hunter safety and simultaneously perpetuate Beau’s love of the outdoors by allowing other young people to learn to enjoy it, too.
“We have really been blessed by people who have really taken care of us through this, on all our projects and fundraising,” Christine Arndt said. “We couldn’t ask for a better group of people. … It’s overwhelmingly humbling, and it just continues.”
The Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks produced a DVD, “Incident at Wright’s Creek,” that depicts the shooting and has become part of the department’s mandatory hunter safety courses.
Developing the lodge would be the next step in keeping Beau Arndt’s passion for the outdoors alive through others.
Angie and Adam Hull, who live near the Arndts, donated Dancer to initiate fundraising efforts.
The Arndts want the drawing for Dancer to start a fund that will be used to purchase at least 80 acres of land to accommodate the new project. They hope to install a 10-acre lake, a lodge, perhaps a few horses to ride and some cabins for family camping.
“Between Americus and Council Grove would be ideal, because that’s where Beau spent most of his time,” Bob Arndt said.
Beau fished and hunted every time the opportunity presented itself, his parents said, drawing on memories to introduce their son to people who did not know him.
He learned how to ride a horse on a brown gelding named Doc. The young teen would saddle up and head out with friends or by himself to scout for good places to hunt. Being mounted on a horse raised his view above the tall grass and let him get a good look at signs of wildlife and where the good hunting areas would be.
“He was such an avid outdoor kid,” Christine said.
Beau broke his leg playing baseball for the Emporia High School team, she recalled. The following day, he talked his mother into taking him out to hunt, letting her set up the equipment he needed.
“And he’s hobbling out there with crutches to go hunting,” she said. “He loved the outdoors and everything in it.”
Fishing, too, occupied Beau’s free time.
He’d come in once from a late night of fishing and had awakened his father.
“He was holding up this big old flathead,” Bob Arndt said.
In the morning, Annabelle Arndt, then about 8 years old, told her parents that she’d dreamed about her brother and having a big fish in bed. Bob led her down to the barn and showed her the huge flathead swimming in the fish tank. It was no dream; Beau had stopped in Annabelle’s room, too, to show her his catch.
Annabelle, now 17, is finishing off Dancer’s basic training with hours of riding. Bob Arndt’s plans to break and train the filly had been sidetracked when a riding accident on March 5 separated his pelvis in two places and brought on a long period of healing.
“I got hurt on a trained horse,” he said.
Training Dancer was out of the question, so Michael Hendricks, a farrier and horse trainer, took Dancer and donated his skills to break her and start her training on solid footing.
“He’s done an excellent job with her,” Bob said. “Really gentled her down.”
Hendricks recently brought the filly back to the Arndts so she could be ridden while he was away on a trip. He’d planned to pick her up on his return, but Annabelle found that Dancer had such a good start in her training that she could stay home and be ridden regularly there.
“We realized she didn’t really need to go back to him because she is so gentle,” Bob Arndt said.
The riding is going very well, Annabelle said.
“She’s very gentle. She’ll pretty much do what I want,” she said.
The “Dancer the Dream Horse” fundraiser has drawn new supporters to the foundation after the horse donation was brought to the attention of a Purina Feeds representative. The company committed to donating feed for Dancer until the day of the drawing, Sept. 25. Bluestem Farm and Ranch Supply in Emporia and Reyer’s Country Store in Strong City are participating in the donation.
News of the drawing already has been mentioned in Purina’s magazine and a regional publication, “Working Horse” magazine, which covers Wisconsin to Texas.
“We had the cutest letter,” Bob Arndt said, mentioning a girl from Missouri who entered the contest.
“She was 8 years old, 8 or 10,” Christine Arndt said. “She said, ‘My name is so-and-so, and I desperately want to win a horse.’”
The Arndts know there will be more horse-lovers of the same mindset, as well as experienced horsemen and women, who will want a chance to win a horse.
Anyone underage who enters the contest will have to provide written permission from a parent to be able to accept the horse. Bob Arndt will make sure that the new owner can take proper care of Dancer and understands that animals as large as a horse can be hazardous, even without intending to be.
He emphasized that, although Dancer has a good start on her training, she is young and will not have the years of being ridden nor the realibility desirable for inexperienced riders.
Entries in the drawing are open to everyone, whether they need a horse of their own or not.
The drawing will be at 3 p.m. Sept. 25 at Camp Alexander during Beau Arndt Outdoor Appreciation Day.
“What would I do with a horse?” Bob Arndt said he has been asked.
His answer: “You can donate a horse.
justthinkin (anonymous) says...
What a wonderful piece - what a wonderful cause.
July 17, 2010 at 2:13 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
neighbor (anonymous) says...
Good luck to the Arndts in this process. I hope the donations roll in and you get to make this all happen.
Bobbi, You're getting closer. You cannot legally hunt from the road nor from a truck without a special handicapped permit which Kent did not possess. You can illegally shoot firearms and poach wild game (by shooting at them without proper permits, proper weapons and ammunition) which was what Kent and his two fellow game slobs were doing that day. Thanks though for trying. The non-hunting public and alot of farmers/landowners tend to associate all hunters with this type of incident when the offender is identified as a hunter. Kent was NOT a hunter.
July 18, 2010 at 10:49 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )