History of PWET
The Purdue Western Equestrian Team was originally a part of the Purdue Intercollegiate Horsemanship Club. The original club (PIHC) was home to both the Purdue Hunt Seat Team and the Purdue Western Equestrian Team. In the spring of 2008 the Western Team decided it would be in its best interest to split from PIHC and form its own club/team. The goal of this new club would be to promote excellence in western equestrian competition and education.
The new club wanted to focus on the western style of riding while providing an opportunity for its members to expand their equestrian knowledge. The new club would offer an opportunity for riding and non- riding members by holding horsemanship clinics, participating in fun social outings geared towards the equestrian hobby, and focus on bettering its IHSA competing team. The new team would have professinal coaches and a barn to practice in that focused on the western style. With these new attributes the team would be provided with a chance to compete at a higher level. Once these goals were set the team decided to elect offices. Rebecca Lutton was voted as the Secretary, Kristen Jurkynas the treasurer, Jackie Davis the Vice President, and myself, Lauren Cline, as President. After electing offices and developing the constitution we felt that the approval process from the university would be easy and we could work through the summer to define the upcoming year's activities.
However, the process proved to be much more work than we had realized. The constitution wasn't approved until July 26,2008. From that point until about November of 2008 many obstacles challenged our new team. However, by the first of 2009 we had worked through many of the kinks. By the end of our first year we had 35 members, 21 competing in IHSA, with about 26 riding in lessons. We had made a trip to the American Quarter Horse Association Congress, planned a horse show, hosted a judging contest, and most importantly developed a very dedicated and fun-loving club.
-Lauren Cline "Founding PWET President"
