I’m Angelea Kelly Walkup; animal lover, web personality, writer, and dressage rider. For those of you that know me you’re familiar with my USEF Pegasus award-winning work at HorseGirlTV® tag lined, Tune in. Tack up.® and I thank you for watching the series. Still read on as there are free products in store for you plus you just might learn something new about me. For those of you that don’t know me yet, you too read on as there are free products in store and hopefully some fun, new entertainment in your near future.

I grew up on the Gulf Coast of Texas in a rural community spat out from a geyser of the Houston oil boom. Time for me without a love of horses does not exist, therefore, insert horse riding at an early age. At that time, the options in Texas were “You can ride western.” or “You can ride western.” and when I asked if I could try dressage I was looked upon as if I’d sprouted a second head. So, I rode western and enjoyed the life of a 4-H kid buying and selling my own horses starting at age 10 and getting on anything anyone would let me ride.

My father died a tragic, untimely death in the early 90s. My world was turned upside down and any part of me that wasn’t already nailed down fell into a void. This ignited a series of extreme changes in my life. I remember packing up my childhood keepsakes, old photo’s and horse show ribbons into enormous U-haul boxes. Just shoveling my entire life into one tiny barren room of what use to be my father’s taxidermy shop. Then, when I was finished, I sold off the rest. I can still hear the Greyhound bus sighing to a halt just before midnight at the Houston station on a sticky, wet mess of an April night. Its doors swooshed open inviting me to leave my past behind and head to a place I’d never been, to live with strangers in the Pacific Northwest.

Now what can I say? I’ve since earned my own way through university with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, the first of my family to attend by the way. I played my role in the dotcom boom of the late 90s working with one of the original social networking companies fortuitously destined to be acquired by Yahoo, Inc. I’ve lived all over the United States, in Spain and Holland and traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East and the South West Pacific. In the early 2000s, I worked in the entertainment industry as a professional dancer and actor as well as a production coordinator while spending several whirlwind years living in the hills of LA. I’ve competed successfully in dressage through Grand Prix and have trained with top stateside riders across both coasts as well as extensively in Holland studying the systematic style of many Olympic Champions. I married a most unique human currently serving our country in the US Marine Corps and sprouted some grey hairs during his deployments to Iraq & Afghanistan. At home together we share a quaint private stable on the east coast moreover known as our Dutch-inspired ongoing development project. I continue to host HorseGirlTV as I have these last 7 years likewise producing the equestrian inspired ballet barre workout DVD equibarre. I freelance write for a variety of national and international publications and am finishing up my first novel as well as my first how to book in the coming months.

Needless to say, life has been on a roll and trying to slow me down could be in the same class as catching a loose warmblood at a dressage show drunk on her new found freedom. You’re going to need more than a lasso to rein me in at this point. Ergo my path combining horse bits and computer bytes lends itself well to a variety of possible writing topics. Nevertheless my ever learning spirit yearns for something new so I want to hear from you. I’m your DJ gladly taking requests so please write me and let me know what you want to hear in the upcoming months here on USEF Network! The best part of making a request is everyone is entered for random giveaway prizes BUT if yours is selected, as one of my topics, you’ll receive an awesome gift from me valued between $40-250. I’ve been lucky to work with awesome companies to give away tens of thousands of dollars in product since 2007 so rest assured I have keenly cool prizes.

Send your requests via www.angelea.com/contact/, I’ll look forward to hearing from you, and Happy New Year! --Angelea, http://angelea.com