Heather Rosselle Irwin has lived all over the country. She's resided in many settings, which include big cities, the country, and many places overseas. At the age of 12, she lived in Iran and was there during the Iranian revolution. As a result of the revolution, she and her family were evacuated out of the country in the middle of the night. They flew to Greece where they stayed for a few days. From there, she and her family traveled throughout Europe. That whole experience-while traumatic-allowed her to witness and live with adversity. When her dad asked the family where they wanted to live, they all voted to go back to the United States! The events leading up to the evacuation from Iran were a torrential and potentially mind-blowing experience for her, but they're what gave her the strength and confidence to move forward and focus her life on what she loved. Heather's heart belongs to the country life, to her husband, and to animals of all shapes and sizes. She's always worked with and around animals and has given them homes from the time she was able to walk and talk. At the age of 14, she started working for a veterinarian so she could work around animals and help them if she could. After that, she worked at a couple of pet shops and at a zoo for one summer. Her love for animals has led her to taking on her biggest challenge and responsibility, which was adopting and caring for her orphaned horse that she named Sequoyah. In her 20s, she became a National Park Service Ranger after graduating from college with her BS degree in Parks and Recreation Management in 1988. She started her National Park Service job the following year. That was part of her dream. Two things that have motivated Heather are the chances to step out of traditional roles for women and to pursue skills that women don't usually acquire. She was trained by the National Park Service and worked in cliff rescues, wildland fires, ocean rescues, and law enforcement as a National Park Service Ranger. She also conducted traffic and speed-enforcement duties during a lot of her assignments. She's ridden horses while patrolling Civil War battlefields. Being a National Park Service Ranger afforded her the above opportunities as well as the opportunity to work outdoors, which she loves. Some of her responsibilities also included interpreting the history of the parks in which she was working and working in resource management as well. That included being aware of the park and its particular resources, protecting those resources through educating the public and through law enforcement, and more. In some of the parks, these were natural resources. In other parks, they were cultural resources. While she was growing up, Heather had dogs, cats, gerbils, hermit crabs, rabbits, a duck, a mouse, crayfish that she and her brother "fished" out of the creek, and other miscellaneous creatures that she loved. She never had a horse, but she always enjoyed horses through books and movies. She got the opportunity to see what having a horse in her life would be like in the winter of 1999. The little horse-just two days old-became her responsibility in more ways than one. Not only would she become the keeper of this little baby, but also she would become its adoptive mother as well. The little horse that she named Sequoyah was orphaned from her real mother because her real mother didn't produce any milk for her. Sequoyah was facing a battle for her life in her first two weeks, and Heather faced all kinds of changes and challenges in her life as a result of taking on the job of motherhood of this baby. Life changed dramatically for both of them forever!
