ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, November 26, 1993                   TAG: 9311260080
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WAYNESBORO, PA.                                LENGTH: Medium

MISTY'S LAST FOAL, STORMY, DIES AT 31

Stormy, a brown-and-white foal of Misty, the Chincoteague pony made famous by a 1940s children's book, has died at age 31.

Stormy, who died Wednesday, was born near Pocomoke City, Md., and lived nearly all her life on Chincoteague Island off Virginia's Eastern Shore. In 1989, she was moved here by Michael Pryor, who runs a nonprofit organization with Misty's descendants.

"When I heard that she was dead, I felt like a little piece of living history was gone. I went into tears along with everyone else at the farm. It was like losing part of you," said Pryor, who took care of Stormy under an agreement with her owner, Jeanette Beebe of Chincoteague.

"I called her `Little Tomboy,' " Beebe said. "She was rough. She wanted her own way. She was spoiled, just like a spoiled kid. She was very pretty."

Stormy was the third and final foal of Misty, who gained fame after Marguerite Henry wrote the 1947 children's classic "Misty of Chincoteague," the first of a series of tales about the herd of wild ponies that live on the island.

In 1962, the California author wrote a sequel, "Stormy - Misty's Foal." Pryor said it sold more than 12 million copies in eight languages.

During the last three years, the mid-sized pony with a white half-moon mark on her forehead underwent cancer operations at New Bolton Medical Center, the University of Pennsylvania's veterinary hospital in suburban Philadelphia.

"She was in good health until last Tuesday. She started not to be herself. She would stand in the corner. She wouldn't eat as much. Even at her age, she'd go in the fields and run and run and run, but she stopped doing that," Pryor said. "The cause of her death was that her major organs shut down, which is common in old horses."

Pryor said Stormy, who died at 7:45 a.m., would be preserved by a Mount Alto, Pa., taxidermist and displayed along with her mother, who died in 1972. 


 by CNB