For the Vernon Winter Carnival Parade this year the Coldstream Women's Institute's prize-winning float was a gambling den. June Osborn was one of The Old Jokers. "I got my daughter to paint on the mustache," she said. "I had a ball. I had to have a big shirt to wear something warm under."

Osborn hasn't missed a parade in 46 years. "I've walked it dozens of times," she said, "and I've nearly frozen to death many a time. Once we pulled a wagon with goats and chickens and children in it. I had to walk in great big boots. I painted my nose bright red with the wrong stuff and it took a week to get it off!"

She also laughs about the time her husband Bill came to the parade and didn't recognize her. Last year she was a Norwegian man holding up a rubber chicken and pretending to chop its head off. The year before that she was a logger with a big beard and a whisky bottle.

Ninety-four year old Osborn regales her many visitors with funny stories from a long life full of adventure, hard work and leadership. Her house overlooks her horses, which are tended to by someone else now because she has to use a walker for balance. But although walking is a problem, she can still ride. As often as she can she heads into the hills on her quarter horse, Woody. "It's just heaven when the sunflowers are out," she said.

Osborn's earliest days were spent on Vancouver Island. She remembers losing a home to fire at French Creek and riding her pony Beauty to school

At sixteen her worried mother decided to make her into a lady and sent her to England to a boarding school. "It was a dreadful highfalutin place. But because I was dyslexic they thought I was a complete idiot so I got to do what I wanted," she said. "I wrote a wonderful essay about my life on the ranch and the teachers accused me of taking it out of a book. When I showed the handmade knife with the birch bark handle and my name on it I was immediately removed."
There followed two years of great homesickness in England after which she went to Vavenby to live. She remembers riding great distances on horseback to dances, with her dress in the saddlebag.

In 1937 she married Bill Osborn, who had grown up in the Okanagan. They bought a farm by the tracks in Lavington and raised their four children. They were kept busy from dawn 'til dark with large gardens, a dairy herd, an orchard, pigs, chickens (there were at one time 400) and horses. The children had their own ponies. She tells of having baby pigs bond with her and follow her everywhere until she had to crawl out the back door to avoid them. To participate in the Armstrong Fair each year she would ride all the way there and sleep in the barn for a couple of nights.

One day in 1946 she was doing beans when a lady arrived who proceeded to interview her and Bill and take pictures because they had been chosen as Mr. and Mrs. Canada. A spread in the Toronto Star followed.

When their youngest was seven they sold the herd because Bill was unwell. Then they decided to go in for beef instead, but when they approached the Coldstream Ranch to rent range he was invited to manage the ranch. Bill managed the Coldstream Ranch from 1953 to 1978. It still had a huge orchard in those days as well as 300 pigs and dairy cows and it extended all the way to Cousins Bay. When asked if it was hard work Osborn responded, "That's putting it mildly. You didn't have the luxury you have now but you didn't think about it. You did it."

When Osborn eventually had a little free time she put it to good use. Always showing horses herself (she was grand champion rider at the IPE in 1949), she began teaching children to ride. Some lived with her for weeks while their families were on holiday. She bred and trained and showed Welsh Mountain Ponies and in 1966 had 150 trophies won by young riders in one year. In 1978 she started the Vernon Pony Club with others. She taught many children who went on to a lifetime with horses.

In the 1980's Osborn helped inaugurate Handicapped Riding, for which Bill built ramps, lifts and other equipment. She had seen how helpful riding was for a couple of children with hip problems.
Osborn was honoured in 1995 in Vancouver as "Horse Person of the Year" for B.C. for all her work with horses, ponies and children throughout the years. Never one to take herself too seriously in spite of such tributes, she enjoys telling of the time she was in a show in Kelowna and so taken by surprise by the command "Halt" that her false teeth flew out of her mouth. That episode has been immortalized by a cartooning granddaughter.

Nowadays Osborn plays bridge, goes to concerts and plays and has visitors everyday. "I get waited on hand and foot now. I like it," she said.

2006-04 Lynn Dewing