My daughter, Mallory, had beliefs that she was unworthy of anyone’s love, could not be successful in school, was not a beautiful young woman, did not have anything worth living for, drugs were her friend, and so on and so on!!

We are anticipating PC4 in a few weeks and Mallory is full of life, ready to move on with her life, thankful for the loving people at Horizon who have helped her to see how worthy, successful, and beautiful she is.  If that is brainwashing, which the definition says it is, THEN BRAINWASH HER!!!

Everything her Dad and I tried did not work.  We needed a little BRAINWASHING ourselves!  We are now Keyholders and staffing seminars and loving every minute of it.  We were at the brink of divorce two years ago and now we are connected in such an intimate way, one that was never there before in 30 years of marriage.  WE’VE BEEN BRAINWASHED!!

I firmly believe that our commitment to our program is crucial in Mallory’s commitment to her program.  We have all worked hard to reunite our family.  I would like to see the statistics on the “Anti-school” group to see how many of those kids and parents completed their programs.  When it got tough, how many dropped out of the program and pulled their kids?

It is almost laughable, if it weren’t so sad, that a person would rather put their time and energy into condemning a program they never really gave an effort to work, instead of looking at themselves and their non-working family and giving it a try.

I prayed for something to come into our lives that would help all of us when Mallory started making choices that were endangering her future and her life.  I am thankful I went into this program without researching every blog of thing that a negative parent had to say.  I guess ignorance is bliss.  I only researched what parents, who stuck with the program, had to say.

I will leave you with this, Mallory’s contract, her purpose, and her values:

“I am a beautiful, honest, intelligent, and caring young woman!

My purpose is to let my beauty shine, while teaching other to live in their excellence!

I value family, integrity, communication, love, respect, and sobriety!  BRAINWASHED!!

You Bet!!

KATHY A.

DAUGHTER MALLORY A.

HORIZON ACADEMY

I was always considered “gifted.” I taught myself how to read at age four, and I learned my multiplication tables in the first grade. I always knew I was smart, and I grew up thinking I didn’t have to work hard to achieve great results; they came naturally. That kind of thinking bred laziness.

By the time I was in the sixth grade, I was so smitten with knowing I was unusually smart that I didn’t feel the need to bother with petty things like homework. I was the artistic intellectual. Writing a five-paragraph “hamburger essay” was beneath me. My life progressed, and my behavior deteriorated. By the time I finished my seventh grade year I was involved in drugs and started acting promiscuously with boys. My parents had divorced when I was six, and all that psychobabble about “finding attention from males due to lacking a prominent father figure” couldn’t have been truer in my case.

My life reached its pinnacle of disaster in the beginning of eighth grade. I was a runaway, trying to self-medicate my pain through drugs, alcohol, and sex with older men. I didn’t heed the prices I would pay for always seeking to more mature than my peer group. My biggest excuse for myself was, “I’m allowed to be precocious; I’m smart.”

Eventually my family grew sick of my impudence and self-destructive ways. They sent me to a behavior-modifying, all-girls boarding school, better known as “a program”. I spent seven months in at a school in Arizona, repairing the relationship with my mom that I had annihilated by my rash decisions that I regarded as spontaneity an just plain fun. In my program I worked on communication skills and dealing with my feelings.

Fast forward seven months, and I re-entered society in May of ‘04 as a much happier person. Things went well for a while, and I vowed to a life of hard work, sobriety, and chastity before marriage. That didn’t last long. After two months I was back to smoking marijuana, after four months I was back to having sex, and after seven months I was back to drinking. However, it took five more months of drinking, drugs, sex and sneaking out to prompt my mom into action.

It had been thirteen months sine I left the school in Arizona, and I unknowingly found myself back in a program. I thought I was going to summer camp. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I arrived at Horizon Academy on June 15, 2006, a week after I completed my freshman year of high school. I had no idea how much my life was going to change.

My first week of attending Horizon Academy, I was completely immersed in feeding my anger and self-pity. I couldn’t believe my mom would do this to me. She hated me, and she was wasting the best years of my adolescence by sending me away to these pointless schools. Didn’t she learn from last time that they don’t work? The difference this time, she said, is I’m going to graduate the program. She’s not going to make the mistake twice of pulling me out early.

When I learned all the schooling at Horizon was on the computer, and the pace of advancement was set by the individual and his or her capacity for work, I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I thought, “If I can graduate high school, then my mom will take me home!” I became obsessed with school. Every day I challenged myself to get more work done than the previous day - not because I wanted to further my education, I just wanted out. It wasn’t until I had been in the program for nearly a year that I discovered how much more life had to offer.

I signed up for “Advanced Financial Economics” because I wanted a challenge. This class wasn’t on the computer, and everyone that took it was notoriously smart. It was taught by a man named Mr. Joe MicoMonaco, someone who would change my life forever.

In Mr. Joe’s class, I was introduced to the world of finance. I learned about the mechanics of the stock market and how many different variables affect the ebb and flow of inflation and deflation. We did a process called “Interpreting Street Signs.” The class was given a set of circumstances involving the core CIP and price of oil per barrel, and then told the predict whether or not the Federal Reserve would change the FFR, and how many basis points they would alter it by. When we completed the first task, we were instructed to project how each sector of the market would be affected due to our changes.

Up until that point I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was more confused that most elementary-school children with their career path. When I was i the second grade I was confident I wanted to be a lawyer, in the third grade I wanted to be a veterinarian, and in the fourth grade I was confident I wanted to be the first female President. By the time I was in the tenth grade, I had no idea what I wanted. Advanced Financial Economics and the mentoring of Mr. Joe changed everything.

I gained vision and desire for my future which prevents me from ever going back to the life I was living before - one of anger, loneliness, and an induced state of euphoria that always left me feeling worse afterwards. I chose to climb out of the rabbit hole, find purpose in my life, and regain the love and power I had neglected to see in myself for so long. Sorry Alice, but this isn’t your Wonderland; it’s MY life. (NOTE**Was written for admission to Berkeley)

BROOKE P.

CURRENTLY ENROLLED

HORIZON ACADEMY

I keep my paintbrush with me

Wherever I may go

In case I need to cover up

So the real me doesn’t show

I’m so afraid to show you me

Afraid of what you’ll do

You might laugh or say mean things

I’m afraid I might lose you

I’d like to remove all my paint coats

To show you the real, true me

But I want you to try and understand

I need you to accept what you see

So if you’ll be patient and close your eyes

I’ll strip off all my coats real slow

Please understand how much it hurts

To let the real me show

Now my coats are all stripped off

I feel naked, bare, and cold

And if you still love me with all that you see,

You are my friend, pure as gold

I need to save my paint brush, though

And hold it in my hand

I want to keep it handy

In case somebody doesn’t understand

So please protect me, my dear friend

And thanks for loving me true

But please let me keep my paint

brush with me,

Until I love me too”

KRISTIN B.

CURRENTLY ENROLLED

HORIZON ACADEMY

My name is Dave S., I am sixteen years old, and I have been attending Horizon for about a year.  It has taken time and work to grow from the selfish person that I was when I first came to the school, to get to the point where I am able to appreciate that we were able to raise the amount of money we did for those less fortunate.  As the day progressed, I saw people who were not all that well off themselves, bid on a pie for thirty-five dollars.  Just a regular apple pie, one that I’m sure they would have had no problem going home to make themselves for about thirty dollars less.  Out of the genuine kindness of their hears, these folks were putting money on the table for those who need it the most.

Of course the day was a blast, and there were a lot of things that  made it that way, but I don’t think anyone lost sight of what the day was really about.  I’ve seen that society today tends to encourage a self-centered behavior I’m sure we’re all familiar with, one centered around what we don’t have, and what we can get more of, but the people who showed up here last week really moved me.  They were focused on how much they could give, not how much they could get.  I’m getting closer to graduating, and things like this has put thoughts in my head, ideas that I could use to make a difference in this world.  While I thought starting off the day, that I was going to be the one giving the gift, I received one instead.  Not one of materialistic value, but one that lasts much longer and is much more powerful.

My message to everyone who reads this is regardless of what you may have to your name, you always, have something to offer the world, as the people of Amargosa Valley showed me today.

DAVE S.

GRADUATED FEBRUARY 2007

HORIZON ACADEMY

I’d like to take a boat ride down a river

Of dreams

Soulfully driven to a moon cool as cie

Cream.

I’d like to take a look down a mind keep

As well.

Or take a trip to a place far from hell.

I’d like to take your reflection and scatter

It into a pond.

I’d like to make a song and sing it under

The palms.

I’d like to be oblivious to all that is real.

I’d like to escape and hope my layers

Start to peel.

I’d like to ride a zephyr, screaming only

To provoke.

I’d like to stuff and stuff until I finally

Choke.

I’d like to float on one of God’s halos

And

Look down at the chaos on the lay low.

I’d like to hit a peek

And then float gently feeling weak.

I’d like to return to chaos

Without hearing a sound

I’d like to intend for this rhyme to have

No end

Verses of “I’d like to” echo as the hours

Suspend.

BRYAN R.

CURRENTLY ENROLLED

HORIZON ACADEMY