MARK WAITE / PVT Sherry and Frank Cork have opened their Northfield Ranch to special needs children for "hippotherapy." MARK WAITE / PVT Billy Clem takes a horseback ride up the entrance to the ranch, escorted by Frank Cork. MARK WAITE / PVT Brian Roberts smiles as he rides "Midnight" escorted by Frank Cork. MARK WAITE / PVT Sheryl Cork, at left, chats with Pahrump Valley High School Special Education teacher Martha Reedy, during a barbecue after the horseback rides. Advertisement

A teenage boy covered his eyes, a little intimidated sitting on "Midnight," a horse 15 hands high, before taking a ride at Northfield Ranch Saturday morning.

It's called "hippotherapy," ranch owner Sheryl Cork explained. "Hippo" is Greek for horse.

The movement of the horse can help patients who have movement and behavior dysfunction, according to the American Hippotherapy Association. The movement of the horse stimulates the brain and nuerologic system, while helping develop a bond between the rider and the horse that improves their social skills.

When the youth returned from a ride on the horse around the ranch, escorted by Sheryl's husband Frank Cork, who hails from an Ely ranching family, he was all smiles, as were the other youngsters.

The ranch is on Garrison Street, near the intersection of Barney Street and Bell Vista Avenue in northwest Pahrump.

The Corks have opened their five-acre ranch to special needs children, like the 22 members of the Special Olympics who just returned from a statewide competition in Reno this Saturday morning with picture-perfect weather.

"We've given them therapy, we've taken them from as far away as Germany and Korea," Sheryl Cork said.

The children can improve their self esteem and life skills riding horses, she said.

Besides special needs children, area doctors have been contacted about using the ranch as therapy for their patients as well.

Sheryl started out as a real estate broker in Pahrump in 1998 but hasn't been selling property lately. Husband Frank works at the Nevada Test Site. Frank Cork bought the ranch in 1991.

"We started bringing families from Las Vegas out here. That's how it started," Sheryl Cork said. She offered a mobile home for families in distress, another program she hopes to continue. "Then kids from other states started coming here, kids that needed therapy."

Sheryl said her parents were always active in community service. They died in 2004 and left her an inheritance that allowed her to develop the ranch.

Sheryl herself volunteered at St. Judge's Ranch in Boulder City before she moved to Pahrump.

The Corks inquired about a grant from Home Depot. Sheryl asked for only a few small things, like a ramp and handicapped bathroom, but Home Depot officials encouraged her to think big, she said.

Eventually Sheryl wants to pave an area as it can be difficult for people in wheelchairs getting around the fresh gravel around the barbecue.

Besides the horses, there's a variety of other diversions the Corks are developing to offer for the children. The Corks have a library with five computers. A wooden dance floor is upstairs in the barn. She is planning to open a kiln for firing pottery and an outdoor kitchen. An organic nursery with a greenhouse sits next to their home.

The Corks have five horses. Frank Cork spent three or four hours Saturday morning escorting different children taking horseback rides.

"Midnight is a Mustang from the Tonopah Range. he did trail rides at Red Rock Canyon for years so he's had every age of person on him," Sheryl said.

Frank works at the Nevada Test Site and has a four-day work week, leaving Friday mornings free as well. Trips to the ranch are usually on Friday and Saturday mornings, before it gets too hot, Sheryl said.

Pahrump Valley High School Special Education teacher Martha Reedy couldn't say enough about the ranch, after bringing her students there for a field trip a few weeks ago. She said the different activities allow the children to be creative in many ways.

"This ranch is a phenomenal, phenomenal ranch," Reedy said.

Reedy said she hopes next year they can have a summer camp, using volunteers from the community and students from the University of Nevada Las Vegas to teach things like drama and art.

"Our summer camp will be a day camp. It won't be an overnight camp. But it'll definitely be a fun camp," Reedy said.

Kay Jones, the leader of the Special Olympics team, said it was their first trip to the ranch, where the children had a picnic munching hot dogs after their horseback ride.

"This is our first time but it's going to be an annual thing. I'm really behind what they're doing for special needs kids," Jones said. "We're just celebrating the end of a year. We don't do anything until we start bowling the first week in August."

Special Olympians also take part in track and field events, play bocce ball and this fall will take up golf, she said.

The Corks plan to offer wagon train rides in May. Frank Cork takes part in the annual Pony Express reenactment in the fall, while the ranch has an entry in the Pahrump Fall Festival parade. The Northfield Ranch will host a visit by Santa Claus the first Saturday in December, Sheryl said.

"We're trying to turn it around and get it more funded by grant money," Reedy said.

While Northfield Ranch was a pleasant place to relax in the shade of the cottonwood trees after a horseback ride, Sheryl looked upward at the Spring Mountains and said she hoped some day there would be a summer camp up in the mountains with land donated by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Northfield Ranch is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. They are also hoping to get a van to transport children to a summer camp.

Sheryl explained the rewards are many for offering the service to the children.

"Everybody else is retired and getting their nails done," Sheryl said. "That's why I'm out pulling weeds in 110 degree heat -- their smiles."