WYLIE, Texas — We've all experienced it—the long wait in the after-school pick-up line. While most parents pull up in cars and trucks, Kimberly Greenlaw's pick-up vehicle was a little more unconventional: a horse. The Collin County resident has a daughter who goes to a middle school in Wylie.
“It was my idea. It's always my idea,” Greenlaw laughed.
Harrison Intermediate of Wylie ISD was celebrating "Country Spirit" day and Greenlaw felt the best way to honor the region's country spirit is to bring Indy, their 23-year-old half-Egyptian, half-Polish-Arabian, to school pick-up. To Kimberly, Indy is more than a pet—she’s a part of the family. Indy is the horse that Kimberly raised from a young age, starting when she was just 15 years old.
"I don't know how much longer I will have with her. She means a lot to me," Kimberly said.
After Kimberly’s last horse tragically died, Indy became her companion, and their bond grew deeper over the years.
"My dad said...you're not going to give up," she said.
This moment is also important to Kimberly's daughter Karson who doesn't mind the attention at the school pick-up line. The sight of a horse trotting through the pick-up line raised a few eyebrows, but it also lifted people's spirits. Indy waited like all the other parents in their vehicles as students were let out.
"I think that's what northerners still think that we do," laughed one parent.
"Only in Texas," said another parent.
After all, before cars, before the daily hustle, seeing someone on a horse wasn’t that unusual. Wylie, not long ago, still had that country living and small-town life. In the last twenty years, Collin County's booming population changed all that. Over time farmland has been replaced by large housing developments.
"Fifty years ago, it wouldn't have been anything," Kimberly said. "When people are around horses...it brings out the best in them," she said.
Kimberly said picking up her daughter on horseback is not something she plans on doing very often. It was a fun experience and a reminder to us all of Wylie's country history.