Six years ago, Ernie Buchanan began volunteering as an instructor for children with special needs at BraveHearts, a nonprofit therapeutic horseback riding and educational center in Harvard. There he helped students, some with autism, become more attentive and focused as they learned about horses.
Before long, the longtime Wauconda resident was accompanying his students as a coach to the Illinois Special Olympics equestrian games in Decatur, where along with families and friends he looked on with pride, not only at the medals won but by the courage shown by the young people throughout the competitions.
“No one knew better than Ernie the hurdles these kids had to clear in order to do what they were doing,” said Meggan Hill-McQueeney, president of BraveHearts. “He was so proud. You could see it in his eyes.”
Mr. Buchanan, 64, a retired executive in the toy industry, died of complications related to a brain tumor on Sunday, Oct. 5, at the Pepper Family Hospice Center in Barrington.
“He was a great guy and a wonderful rider,” said Dale Timmermann, owner and operator of Timmermann’s Ranch in Island Lake. Mr. Buchanan was an original member of the Timmermann’s Drill Team, and his horse, Tailwind, has been boarded there for years.
“He used his talents and skills to help those that needed it most,” Timmermann said.
BraveHearts recently established the Ernie Buchanan Equestrian Volunteer of the Year Award, to be given annually to a volunteer at the Special Olympics equestrian games. It will be presented Oct. 25 at this year’s games in Poplar Grove.
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“Ernie cared deeply about his horses and students and the sport of riding,” Hill-McQueeney said. “He did everything from setting up trail patterns to tacking up horses to running dress rehearsals. He was a team player who loaned his personal horse to many students and who always found the time to help riders needing assistance. It wasn’t uncommon to see him assist and congratulate an athlete at the Special Olympics, whether they were on his own team or not.”
Born July 4, 1950, in Chicago, Mr. Buchanan grew up in Des Plaines and graduated from St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights. When he was 14, his parents sent him for the summer to a dude ranch in Wyoming, where he learned to ride horses.
“He was a quick learner and good at it,” said his wife of 42 years, Dianne. “It was one of the best times of his life.”
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1972, Mr. Buchanan taught for a few years at Barrington Middle School, and later at St. Viator.
After a couple of years he left teaching to work in sales in the Chicago office of the toy manufacturer Hasbro. He was put in charge of a bigger sales territory in Minnesota before being promoted again and moving to the Seattle area, where he remained for the next seven years.
Mr. Buchanan later worked for Nintendo during the early 1980s, but after a couple of years he returned to Hasbro, working as a sales manager at the company’s headquarters in Rhode Island and eventually rising to vice president of sales.
In 1991 he returned to the Chicago area and settled with his family in Wauconda after accepting a sales management position with Mattel. He left Mattel to work for Tyco Playtime and later served as president of Team Concepts North America, before retiring at age 57.
It was in the mid-1990s, while planning a vacation with his wife to the same dude ranch he had visited in his youth, that Mr. Buchanan decided to take a refresher course in horseback riding with his wife at Timmermann’s Ranch. He went on to compete in western speed shows, and together the couple participated in countless drill team competitions.
That led to Mr. Buchanan becoming a certified therapeutic horseback riding instructor in 2007, and later joining the volunteer staff at BraveHearts.
“Working as an executive in the toy industry is what he did, but helping children with special needs learn to love horses is who he was,” his wife said
Other survivors include a daughter, Cristine Goodfellow, and two grandsons.
Services were held.