Silvia Tauber

I was born in Switzerland in 1974, and soon after immigrated to the States. Due to my father's research, we moved around quite a bit before we ended up in California, where I spent most of my teenage years. There my brother, sister, and I took riding lessons at a local barn. We did a little jumping, a little dressage, had a lot of fun, but after a few years the barn closed and we never found another one.

In 1989 my father passed away, but instead of moving back to Switzerland, we continued to make our lives in the States. In 1993 I passed my GED, and, for lack of direction, went to all of the community colleges in the area. After a year of this, I joined my sister at the University of Montana in Missoula where I changed my major about once a week.

At the same time I was dealing with all this confusion at school, I picked up taking riding lessons again. It was through pure luck and perhaps the fact that she was the only teacher in a 100-mile radius that I ended up with Meredith Manor graduate Stephanie Cey. I learned so much at these riding lessons, about horse handling, communication, and riding. Stephanie changed my concept of riding from a hobby to an art. Before long I was hooked and I longed for more than my one hour lesson twice a week. By the Spring of '96 I had quit school and enrolled here at Meredith Manor for the Summer Quarter. I was thinking I could always go back to a traditional college if it doesn't work out, but since I've come here (a year and a half ago) I haven't looked back once.

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