Bo Noon remembers his aunt Peggi Noon as a woman who was small in stature but big in accomplishing things for the betterment of folks, especially when it came to horses and the therapy they offered.
“It was really beautiful how she touched people,” Bo Noon said of Peggi, “She was a spunky woman who definitely made a splash that had a ripple effect.”
A lifelong lover of horses, Peggi Noon was the driving force behind the non-profit Pegasus Riding Academy, which provided therapeutic horseback riding for those with disabilities and special needs. She had long been a PATH certified therapeutic instructor, with PATH being an acronym for The Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International.
therapy fun, productive for children with special needs
“Her main goal was to watch people blossom through horses,” explained Bo Noon, who said the program served children and young adults with Down Syndrome, attention deficit disorder, autism, sensory issues and other conditions.
“She loved kids and poured her heart into children,” he added. “It was amazing what she could bring out in those kids when they started riding horses.”
Peggi Noon, who would’ve turned 70 later this month, died Sept. 5, after a long, courageous battle with cancer. Sadly, her riding academy, which operated out of stables on Tennessee Avenue on the site of the former Roberds Dairy, closed with the death of its founder. Her personal horses were taken by family members and the others were relocated to therapeutic facilities, Bo Noon said.
“Nobody jumped up to take the reins,” Bo Noon said of the demise of Pegasus. “Truth be told, she (Peggi) should’ve have left this world a long time ago.” She was first diagnosed with mouth and throat cancer around the time she opened Pegasus, her nephew said.
“Eighty percent of her tongue was removed and she had a hard time speaking,” he added. “She was cleared (of cancer) but two years later it returned and she underwent radiation and chemo.”
Three years ago she found out she had ovarian cancer, he added.
“As far as we (the family) knew, the second bout never went away,” he said. “But (operating Pegasus) gave her the motivation to get up and keep going.”
Pegasus was staffed by a dedicated group of volunteers like Calum Crampton, who met Peggi Noon by chance in 2019.
“She had some health issues, and I did too and she told me about (Pegasus),” said Crampton, who describes himself as a longtime animal lover and supporter. “Ever since I had been helping out tending to the stalls and the barns.”
Crampton was one of dozens of mourners who remembered Peggi Noon during a recent impromptu memorial at the barn.
Bo Noon and other close family members, who had been in town while Peggi was hospitalized, were impressed and touched at the effect their loved one had on people.
“It was a beautiful ceremony done with super short notice,” Bo Noon said. “I bet we had about 100 people show up. There were so many who came out and spoke. It was really something how she touched people.”
Crampton said a mother of a child who benefited from Peggi’s program talked about how, after riding horses at Pegasus, her non-verbal child started interacting and engaging with people.
“Riding horses really changed his behavior,” he recalled. “Pegasus was a good program and a great idea that Peggi Noon had.”
Bo Noon said his aunt was an attorney and that the law had “brought her to Savannah.”
Soon, however, the law “took a backseat to her love of horses,” he added.
Initially, she worked at a local carriage company and then started making plans to start Pegasus. She also was an avid sailor who raced in regattas.
“If we weren’t on horses (when we visited) we were on the water,” he recalled. “That woman was everywhere doing everything.”
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Peggi Noon remembered for her therapeutic horse work | Exclusive
