NEWS &VIEWS Shirley Geis
September 21, 1929-September 19, 2012 On September 19, 2012, the Maryland equestrian community and the Maryland 4-H community lost
one of its greatest treasures, Shirley Geis, founder of the Spur & Stirrup 4-H Club and one of the driving forces behind the Maryland 4-H Foundation’s Sallie Robertson Memorial Endowment Fund. Donations in memory of Shirley Geis for the support and perpetuation of the equine programs (such
as hippology, horse bowl, and horse judging) may be made to the Maryland 4-H Foundation, Inc. 8020 Greenmead Drive; College Park, Maryland 20740. T e following obituary is condensed from an article by Ross Peddicord, which appeared in the February 2001 edition of T e Equiery. T e article commemorated Shirley being honored with the Maryland Horse Council’s Pumphrey Memorial Award for “behind the scenes contributions” to the state’s horse industry and the Maryland 4-H Foundation’s Youth Development Award.
The sign at the end of Shirley Geis’ driveway reads “4-H Club member lives here.” What an understatement.
Since 1967, Shirley Geis had put her heart and soul into developing 4-H horse clubs, coaching their winning Hippology and Horse Judging teams, organizing English and Western-riding shows and developing youth into leadership roles on a county, state and national level. She was a 4-H Hall of Famer and a 4-H All-
Star. She’d won the Mylo Downey Award for her leadership qualities and the coveted Doro- thy Emerson National Award for instilling in- tegrity among 4-Hers. She received the Mary- land Horse Council’s Pumphrey Memorial Award for “behind the scenes contributions” to the state’s horse industry and the Maryland 4-H Foundation’s Youth Development Award. Even eye surgery and recurring health prob- lems never kept Shirley down. “She could have quit a long time ago, but
she stayed right with these programs,” said Bill Lynerd, a trustee of the Maryland 4-H Foun- dation. “She might have [had] trouble seeing and [walking] with some diffi culty. But no one is better at articulating the value of these horse programs for youth. If I would have to pick one characteristic to describe her, it would be dedi- cation. No one [was] more truly dedicated to 4-H than Shirley Geis.” In 1985, when Shirley was looking for a way to raise funds to help send Maryland’s 4-H horse judging teams to the national fi nals in Kentucky, she turned to her friend, Sallie Rob- ertson, who owned the famous Ship’s Quar- ters Farm in Westminster. “Sallie was always gracious in supporting youth projects and she stepped right up to the plate,” Geis told Ped- dicord. T us was born the annual 4-H Horse- man’s Party. After Robertson’s death, Shirley helped to establish the Sallie Robertson Me- morial Endowment Fund, for which the party became a fundraiser, and the party joined forces with the Maryland Horse Council. In the mid-90s, Shirley recruited Equiery publisher Crystal Brumme to help organize 10 | THE EQUIERY | NOVEMBER 2012
and promote the fundraiser, and after ten years, when the pair stepped down, the party had raised over $150,000 for the fund. About fi ve percent of that money (or $5,000) is used each year to help send Maryland’s 4-H Horse Judging, Horse Bowl, Demonstration, Public Speaking and Hippology teams to national competitions. T e rest is used to grow the en- dowment.
No Mary Poppins! Ironically, while Shirley had always been
involved with horses and dogs, her interest in helping kids developed much later. ”I’m not a Mary Poppins, you know. I think some of these kids are terrifi ed of me!” she quipped to Peddi- cord when he took her to lunch back in 2001. Her state teams always placed in the top 10 nationally and she was known for having the team members drill hard and be well prepared. Friend and fellow 4-H coach, Darryl Ann Buschling, described her thus: “She was very strong in what she believed in and how she liked to get things done. She was a bit of a Jack Russell.”
She Flunked Housekeeping
Shirley grew up in the Pittsburgh, PA area and had her own horse, Billy, while she was in high school. Her parents raised show-quality Great Danes. T en as a student at Michigan State Col- lege of Agriculture and Applied Science, a land-grant college similar to the University of Maryland [today it is known as Michigan State University], Shirley started judging livestock and became one of the fi rst female members of the college’s Block and Bridle Club. “My goal was to become a veterinarian,” she said. But in that day and age, there were very few female vets. “Women either became a teacher, a nurse or a housewife,” she said. “And I’ve always fl unked housekeeping.”
Shirley switched her major from pre-vet to
zoology and then went to graduate school to study bacteriology, specializing in parasitology. She moved to Maryland in 1956 with her
husband, wildlife biologist and population stat- istician Al Geis. Shirley fi rst worked as a mi- crobiologist at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington and then at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and in a career span- ning thirty years she studied infectious diseases ranging from rabies to AIDS.
4-H & Horses Shirley became interested in 4-H youth work
after her son, Dean, was born in 1957. At age nine, Dean (now a farrier and owner of a small farm in Carroll County with his wife, Lori) started riding at Camp Waredaca in the sum- mer. His parents, who had always been interest- ed in horses, came along with him to take rid- ing lessons, eventually buying their own horses. T ey pleasure-rode, hunted and showed. T e Geises and their three horses (George,
Dusty and Boog) settled into a 20-acre farm in Clarksville which they named “Quail Call.” When Dean wanted to join the local Hi- Riders 4-H Club, there was a waiting list. So another club, Spur & Stirrup, was formed in 1969. Shirley was asked to be its adult leader. T irty years later, she still served as the leader.
No whining! Shirley said she was drawn to 4-H because
of “its balanced programs. I like that the kids have to keep records. I like the judging aspect of it and that both styles of riding, English and Western, are encouraged. “Judging is great because you have to give
oral reasons about why you pick one horse over another one. You have to make a decision and explain it. T at’s an important skill to develop no matter what you do in life.” Over the years Shirley’s involvement in 4-H
continued on page 28 800-244-9580 |
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