1996 – Palm Springs, California & London, England
Doing things with international panache comes naturally to Lori Sarner, who is as much at home on a horse at London’s Hyde Park Riding Club and her beloved Pegasus Riding Academy in Palm Springs as she was growing up in Minnesota, her birthplace, and Chicago where she lived for thirty-three years. Combining her love for horses and her commitment to humanitarian causes, she has been known to bring a horse into a hotel grand ballroom for charity benefits and to maneuver octogenarians to mount a horse for the first time in her therapy riding classes at the Pegasus Riding Academy for the Handicapped. As founder and head instructor of the Pegasus program, she spends weekday mornings teaching riding therapy to children of all ages and patients from the Stroke Activity Center in Palm Springs as well as the Carlotta Home for the Aged. During summers she teaches for the Riding for the Disabled program in London, whose patron is Queen Elizabeth II. Lori studied art and music at the University of Minnesota where she met her husband Harvey, now a retired attorney. Because of their keen interest in education and the free enterprise system, the Sarners have become ardent supporters of Northwood University and have sponsored a Northwood international student from Albania. Lori notes,”We have seen what Northwood has done for a boy who came from one of the harshest and most isolated communist regimes in the world. He has acquired the knowledge and understanding for developing a business in his own country when he returns.” Lori repeatedly has been honored for her lifetime commitment to humanitarian causes. She believes that the best way to ensure world peace is through education and international friendship and in this quest her charitable heart has no boundaries. A tireless community leader, Mrs. Sarner has won the high regard of her fellow citizens at home and abroad.
