R.K. and L.D.Stewart tribute to Mark Dees

Jean Ragland (jragland@shasta-co.k12.ca.us)
Sun, 26 Jan 1997 17:15:03 -0800

Hi, I was sorry to hear about the death of Mark Dees. I contributed to his
beginnings in AERC, but from then he went full boar on his own. Mark came
to our ranch in Ojai CA one day because he wanted to know about endurance
riding and had heard that I had done some. He had a black saddle with
metal studs, straight out of a Tom Mix movie and his stirrups were at least
4 holes too short. I did what I could and he learned some on his early
rides. His first Tevis I ended up helping him, he got lost only because he
teamed up with someone who did not know the way, but we got him back to
Auburn and he was gung ho to keep on trying. Whether it was cars or horses
or whatever, Mark loved to go fast. Please let me know what happened, I am
not a member of AERC, send me the news at my E-mail address. Thanks Jean