Members of the Virginia Tech Equestrian Team remember and learn from a friend lost to tragedy.

In the wake of the campus tragedy at Virginia Tech on April 16, when student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 27 students, five faculty members, and himself, members of the university equestrian team sought solace in the best place they could think of—on the backs of their horses.

As they quietly hacked around the damp fields and dense wooded areas that are part of the school’s 2,600-acre campus in Blacksburg, Va., they reminisced about their friend and teammate, 18-year-old Emily Jane Hilscher, who was the first victim of the shooting. They also started the healing process for themselves.

“On the day of the tragedy, we sat in front of the television in disbelief,” said team coach Teresa McDonald. “After the convocation and the candlelight vigil, and having all classes canceled for the week, it seemed natural for us to go riding.”

It had been cold and windy on April 16. But the following days hinted of spring. McDonald rounded up members of the team and they headed out to the beautiful fields with mountain views, stopping to admire some newly born calves along the way.

“With all the death and destruction around us, it brought me hope to see new life,” said McDonald. “It was nice to be together riding. It felt normal for a little while. I hope it helped the students. It certainly made me feel better.”

“It was a beautiful day and a great escape,” said Susan Wilson, a longtime member of the equestrian team who just finished her junior year and will return next year as captain of the team. “Afterwards I felt good, or at least as good as I could feel knowing what had just happened at our school.”

“During that ride we talked a lot about Emily, all her contributions to the team, and what we could do to honor her memory,” said fellow team member Jessica Gould, a senior studying in the Animal and Poultry Sciences Department.

Life on campus was at a standstill, and the team planned another trail ride for the next day. But by then the media had invaded every corner of the large campus. Because of their intense interest in Hilscher (based on unfulfilled speculation that she had had a relationship with the shooter), news crews, cameras, vans and satellite dishes swarmed the barn. McDonald quickly canceled the ride.

“I didn’t want the students hounded for interviews because we knew Emily,” said McDonald. “So we gave up on our trail rides and only came to the barn—sneaking in through a back door—to take care of the
horses.”

According to McDonald, news-hungry reporters went so far as to come into the barn after being asked to leave several times, searching for anything related to Hilscher. “They found my mounting chart—a hand-written list assigning horses to riders for lessons. The fact that Emily was supposed to have ridden a horse named Ed on that Monday made headlines on CNN,” said McDonald.

Unable to ride because of the media invasion, members of the team turned their focus to what they had learned from Hilsher’s good character and made plans to honor their friend.

A Bright Future
An aspiring young rider and equine vet, Hilscher majored in Animal and Poultry Sciences. She joined the equestrian club as soon as she arrived in Blacksburg. She didn’t care about the rule that freshmen couldn’t compete until their second semester.

By spring, she was a full-fledged member of the equestrian team at Virginia Tech. She’d done her due diligence during the fall semester. She had volunteered to hold horses ringside for hours while the senior members of the team competed. She took on tasks that nobody else wanted and attended meetings, always with a smile.

Now it was her turn in the arena. Her first intercollegiate show was at St. Andrews Presbyterian College (N.C.) in early February.

At her second show, two weeks later at Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, Va., she beamed as she
accepted her sixth-placed ribbon in an equitation class. After her ride, she patted the horse she’d ridden and conferred with McDonald about what to work on for the next show. She planned to compete again on April 21.

But, of course, it didn’t turn out that way. Instead of cheering her on at a horse show on April 21, Hilscher’s family, friends, teachers, coaches and equestrian teammates attended her memorial service.

At that memorial, family and friends remembered Hilscher as a hard-working young horse lover whose pleasant attitude and friendly nature made her a favorite everywhere.

And although she had been at Tech for less than a year, she had quickly bonded with other members of the equestrian team. “Some freshmen aren’t too excited about the fact that they can’t join the team until the spring,” said Shelby Clark, an equestrian team member who just graduated.

“But Emily was enthusiastic about everything,” continued Clark. “She happily joined the equestrian club and attended tack-cleaning parties, worked at fundraisers, and of course those volunteer jobs like getting up at 5 a.m. to hold horses all day at a dressage show.”

The equestrian club at Tech supports the team with fundraising activities. “Collegiate riding takes so much work,” said McDonald. “She was always willing to work, even in the first semester when she couldn’t show. Then the spring rolls around and she finally gets to show. I think—I hope—she had a really great time at those two horse shows.”

Emily’s mother, Beth Hilscher later shared with McDonald that intercollegiate showing was one of the highlights of her daughter’s tragically brief college career.

“She was going to be a vet,” said McDonald, “and I mean she was really going to be a vet. Students come into the Animal and Poultry Sciences Department not anticipating the rigorous academics. But Emily was going to get it done. She was a doing sort of young lady.”

Her Love For Horses Was Hard To Miss
Emily’s sparkle was hard to miss. So were her rubber muck boots, which she often wore to classes, fresh from the barn. Early in the spring semester, Nick Kocz, her freshman composition professor, had assigned his students the task of describing themselves in a single paragraph.

Most of the responses were unmemorable, but Emily’s stood out even months later. “She described herself as a country girl,” he recalled. “And she talked about her horses and how much she loved growing up in Rappahannock County, Virginia.

“There was a purity in her response that you don’t find with most freshman writers,” said Kocz. “She was the type of person you’d want your children to grow up to be.”

Later in the semester, students in the class expressed uncertainty about an assignment that required them to interview another person. To demonstrate the process, Kocz asked Emily if he could interview her in front of the class. The topic was her life with horses.

“She again talked about her love of riding horses,” said Kocz, “And the thrill of steeplechase races and foxhunting. She said she was new to the world of horse shows, but she loved being part of the team and, of course, she loved the horses.”

Emily’s college life at Virginia Tech was just one chapter of her horse-loving life story. “She grew up riding recreationally,” said Gould. “She liked the speed and the adrenalin rush of the races.”

Emily grew up with lots of fast rides in the saddle. She foxhunted with the Warrenton Hunt (Va.) and competed in pony races at the Virginia Gold Cup in The Plains, Va. As Emily’s equestrian team mentor, Gould had promised to teach her all about the more restrained hunter seat discipline.

“She promised that if I taught her all I knew about showing hunters,” said Gould, who is pursuing an Animal and Poultry Sciences degree, “that she would teach me to foxhunt.”

Emily, whose 19th birthday would have been June 2, grew up in Woodville, Va., a quiet rural Rappahannock County town surrounded by farmland. She loved living in the country and all of the outdoor—and horse-related—delights it offered.

At the memorial where hundreds gathered at her high school to share in their loss, her father Eric Hilscher spoke about her plans to return to home after completing her studies. “Emily got her wish to come back to Rappahannock County—God’s country. She just came back too soon,” he said.

A Journey For Tech’s Equestrian Team
From first learning about Emily’s death, then being driven out of the barn by the frenetic media, members of the equestrian team have united to honor Emily. They have brainstormed on ideas for memorializing their friend, talked quietly about where they were when they heard the news, and attended the memorial ceremonies and the candlelight vigil together.

They made a scrapbook with photos, notes and decorated pages for Emily’s parents. Members of the team also made care packages for the hundreds of police officers stationed around campus, giving them bottles of water and edible treats—something they thought maybe Emily would have done given the situation.

They have also organized a permanent trophy in Emily’s name, which will be given for the first time at the Virginia Tech Intercollegiate Horse Show Association show in September.

Members of the team collaborated with the Animal and Poultry Sciences Department to set up a Virginia Tech Foundation account in Emily’s name. About a week later, the university established a Hokie Spirit Fund for each victim. Emily’s Hokie Spirit Fund has now been merged with the one originally set up by the equestrian team.

“As soon as people heard about Emily’s death, the phones starting ringing,” said McDonald. “People wanted to know what they could do to help, or how to honor her memory. I have been so amazed at the
generosity of the horse community.”

The IHSA has helped promote the fund for Emily by talking about it in radio interviews during the IHSA National Championships, and selling Tech’s “LiveStrong” wristbands, with the slogan “Invent the future and learn from the past.” The IHSA has also established a scholarship in Emily’s name, the first one of which was awarded at the IHSA Nationals in early May.

“People have been coming up with ideas to honor her memory, like the IHSA scholarship,” said Clark. “And we hope to engrave a brick at the Lexington Horse Center with her name. We’ve also talked about larger-scale ideas like raising enough money to build a new barn and naming it after her.”

“We’ve tried to focus our thoughts not on how she died, but how she lived,” said Wilson. “She had such a good spirit and she was a role model for all of us. As team captain next year, I will encourage all of our riders to be grateful that we have the chance to ride, and to ride for Emily, whose horseback adventures ended way too soon.”

“It’s been an interesting journey with these kids,” said McDonald. “We’re a lot closer as a group, now. The worst part is that we still had so much to learn from Emily. She was just beginning.”

You can make a contribution to the Emily Jane Hilscher Memorial Fund by sending a check made payable to the Virginia Tech Foundation to:

Kitson Jazynka