Tanbark Acres in the News
In early March my parents got a phone call from Geni Dowd, a writer from the local newspaper. “We want to do a story about your horses”, she said. And so she came to the farm, took pictures and notes, and wrote a front page story for the March 18, 2008 edition of the Surry News Messenger. I just found the online version. The author made a few mistakes, and spelled some names wrong (and by the way, it is Oeke who is modern, on the second page, not Dahlia) but overall she did a very nice job.
At the foot of Fancy Gap mountain, there is a winding road lined with white fence, broken by a wrought iron gate. Following the long drive up along the row of massive, whispering pines, in between pastures and by the big white and black barn, you’ll find a farm where a wondrous creature lives – the Friesian horse.
Tanbark Acres is owned by Carlton and Dee Everhart, who fell in love with the Friesian in 1998. “We used to raise American Saddlebreds,” Carlton said last week. After he retired from a career in medicine, he and his wife wanted to get back into raising horses, but he felt that the saddlebred was a bit too hotheaded for them. “We were going to the library and looking up breeds when I saw a picture of a Friesian. I had never seen or heard of them before. I thought it was gorgeous and I called Dee over. I said let’s raise those.”
