Hello all, 

For those of you who don’t know me, I am the 25-year-old daughter of Thomas and Cynthia West and a current resident of Hilliard, Ohio.  I graduated summa cum laude (4.0 G.P.A.) from Ohio University in 2004 with majors in Accounting, Finance, and Business Law and was first in my class of 2,513 graduates.  A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), I started my career as a forensic accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Chicago, Illinois in August 2004.  But alas, the only horses I saw in the city were police horses, so in January 2006, I returned to Ohio, joining Cardinal Health’s Mergers & Acquisitions team.  I eventually hope to go back to school to earn my PhD. 

I started riding Quarter Horses when I was two years old, and it was love at first “sit!”  As a youth, I was active with OQHA’s horse bowl, speech, and horse judging teams and won the horse judging contest at the 2001 All American Quarter Horse Congress (the largest such contest in the nation) and the impromptu speech contest at the 2001 AQHYA World Show.  I was also one of three youth chosen to represent the United States at the 2000 Youth World Cup in Portogruaro, Italy in an “educational enrichment” capacity.  As an amateur, I was the 2002 and 2003 Northern Ohio Quarter Horse Association Queen, and placed ninth overall both times in the Congress Queen’s Contest.  While at Ohio University, I was president of OU’s equestrian team and was a member of the 2002 Intercollegiate Horse Show Association national championship hunt seat team.  I was also the 2003 - 2004 Zone 6, Region 1 high point hunt seat rider.

So why did I want to be queen?  Ever since I was born, I have always been daddy’s little girl.  At some point, he started to call me his princess, a name which stuck amongst my family members.  But after attending my first All American Quarter Horse Congress and watching the 1990 Queen, Sharon McLeod of Ontario, Canada, be crowned, I decided, why stop at being called princess when I could be a real-life queen!

All kidding aside, I am so excited and honored to be the 2008 OQHA Queen!  I credit the American Quarter Horse and the Ohio Quarter Horse Association for teaching me everything from dedication to persistence to patience to sportsmanship and everything in between.  In addition to giving me so many amazing opportunities, they helped shape me into the person I am today.  The Quarter Horse and the OQHA have so much to offer, and I will truly cherish the opportunity to promote and endorse them! 

Thanks again, and I hope to see you around!

Hugs,

Jessica A. West