Many of you have heard already of Rea Swans attempt to take over the Associations Elected Officials and Board Members by gathering up her own board by Petition. She has sent out a letter to select members to sign a petition to enable her to get on the ballot and her hand picked board. She states in this letter that those on the slate are unsuitable, and not educated enough to handle the job at hand.

Let us not forget this is the same woman who last year abused her position as board member to take the member list and use it as a tool to try and destroy a fellow member and elected official for personal reasons. She blatently disregarded the bylaws written by her own board.

Ths is also the same person who claims to have the horses wellbeing at heart and yet has known for years that there was an eye problem in the breed. She even went so far to as to make eye examination for Cataracts part of the Certification process and then upon discovering Nuncio had Cataracts quickly dropped the requirement from Certification the following year. Nuncio is going blind, has Cataracts and yet this woman refused to let Dr. Ramsey Examine her herd! And to make it worse she continues to stand Nuncio at Stud!

DO WE REALLY WANT TO PUT SUCH A PERSON IN A HIGH DEGREE OF POWER??? ALONG WITH HER HAND PICKED BOARD???

Think very hard and this year VOTE!! REGISTER YOUR SPOUSES TO VOTE NOW!!

FOR THE LOVE AND WELL BEING OF THE HORSE VOTE!! DON'T LET THE BREED ASSOCIATION BE DESTROYED FOR SOMEONES PERSONAL EGO!

-- Kathleen Naylor (knaylor@proaxis.com), May 13, 1998

Answers

Overriding the nominating committee

I received a phone call from someone representing the "Committee to Save the Rocky Mountain Horse". She just wanted to confirm that I was an RMHA member and that they had my current address. The committee would send me out a letter. I asked what they were saving the Rocky Mountain horse from, and she said she couldn't answer my questions, but that David Swan could, and gave me his phone number. I did not call to speak with him, since I was aware of his position on the ASD problem--it might just be caused by a food additive or deficiency, according to him.

So be aware! The Swans are actively working to take over OUR association. They want to save the Rocky Mountain Horse from the publicity of the eye problem They will undermine the work of responsible owners and breeders who are trying to breed the ASD problem out of existence. Take the information in their mailings with a large grain of salt. Don't forget the work of the genetic committee and what they have recommended to preserve the vision of our wonderful horses. And most importantly, remeber these things when you are asked to sign a petition in support of the Swans' candidates, and when you actually vote for the RMHA board.

-- Becky Gage (bgage@neosoft.com), May 13, 1998.

I must first take a deep breath to calm myself after reading the TOTALY inaccurate and COMPLETELY wrong comments of Mrs. Nalor. 1. The bylaws of the RMHA clearly and specificaly provide for the nomination of members of the board by the members by petitions. The number of signatures for nomination has been set by the board at 88 for this election. The current president was nominated in this fashion. The bylaws were established in this fashion to prevent ANYONE form subverting the will of the membership. 2. Kentycky Law allows any mamber of a NonProfit organization to have a list of the members. The Board in violation of this law refuss to provide the list to members who would use it. The List that was used to send out petitions concerning a violation of the bylaws by the board was a list that I develoed form other sources and not a "membership list". Incidently the acused in that case thought that the use of weighted shoes (3# +) was ok and stated so in board discussions. Do you think that is proper? Do you think that it was proper that the board would not even discuss the case as provided in the bylaws? 3. Rea Swan spent forn 1981-1985 traveling the length and bredth of Ky, and Oh. traveling over 100,000 miles to put this breed together long before any of you reeders knew there was such a thing. You learned about this horse because of her tireless work over the first 10 years of the assciuaton while she was presedeint, advertising chief, total information center and answerer of questions. She has paid more dues than any other member of the associaton to get it up and going. She is now with reluctance returning to the presidency to save the assocaition from inaction and failure to serve the members of the curent board. She asked knowledgeble, experienced and dedicated members from all over the U.S. to help her get the association functioning again and they have responded. 4. Nuncio has no funcional visual disability, he is a little nearsighted, but is not, has not and has shown no signs of going blind. 5. Garbage is all I will say about Rea hiding ASD. The details on this are available on the Rocky Mountain Horse forum. Rea was the one that invited Dr. Ramsey to Kentucky, set up his clinics, and had all of our horses at the time examined. This year she was instrumental in bringing in opthalmaologists form Perdue. 6. No cataracs - but opacioties in the eye. Yes ther were roumors of eye problems and we were looking but laked the training , along with all of our vets. As soon as ther was the smallest amount of hard date Rea acted. 7. Yes NUNCIO is at stud in complete compliance with the guidlines issued by the association. Todate he has breed 0 mares this year. He has had about 150 foals in his breeding lifetime of 16 years (one of the least active major stallions). He has never had a blind foal. 8. Rea or I will glad to discuss these totaly false and misleading accustions at any tiem (606) 263 4374. Our lives have been dedicated to this horse (as a breed) long befor there was an assocaition. The breed has done well but the assocation has been unable to break out of its Kentucky borders and become a national organization that can continue to grow. It is high time for the board to have representatives from all over the country who have the skills that we need to properly run this organization. Not individuals who falsify information, manufacture false incidents and plainly don't have the sense to know when they dont know anything. David Swan

-- David S. Swan (DeNaws@AOL.com), May 13, 1998.