Remembering Tiana: Alumna’s family launches memorial fund

According to Tiana’s mother Julie, horses and dance were the two loves of Tiana’s life from the time she was a child. She grew up in dance classes and 4-H while taking advanced horse classes at summer camps. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Tiana connected with a past Lakeland student and turned her focus to pursuing a career working with horses.
Financially, her parents couldn’t help with college, but, according to Julie, that didn’t stop Tiana.
“That was not her approach to life at all,” Julie says. “She just figured out a way to make sure she got there.”
She applied for and was awarded numerous scholarships, helping pay for her two years in Lakeland’s animal science technology program, equine major. There, she was part of the Student-Managed Farm – Powered by New Holland’s equine unit that started the college’s broodmare program. Tiana was excited to have a hand in creating something for future generations of students to build on. She called the experience one of the greatest in her life.
“There was so much joy and excitement when she talked about what she was learning from her instructors, with her co-students,” Julie remembers. “COVID was still a big issue at that point but she was still able to make friendships and create relationships. Lakeland managed to figure out how to make the program work regardless of the extenuating circumstances. That was definitely something that got her and probably some of her co-students through a difficult part of their lives.”
After graduation, Tiana found work, first at a ranch near Williams Lake, B.C. She then moved to Saskatchewan, working as a ranch hand both at a bison ranch & a beef ranch. That’s when she purchased June Bug.
Tiana already had a horse at the time, Foxy, but her lessons from Lakeland were telling Tiana that she needed another horse to help lighten the load.
“Everything from Lakeland was keeping her alert to things she needed to pay attention to when it came to what was important for her horse,” Julie says. “With the education she had from Lakeland, she was putting together lots of different pieces because with so much riding the range, Foxy was going nonstop and was starting to lose weight and lose condition. Tiana knew she needed another horse to be able to swap them out and keep them healthy.”
Tiana bought June Bug and was ground training her with plans to begin roping off her. Before she could, Tiana passed away in an accident on the ranch she worked at on Aug. 23, 2023.
After losing Tiana, her family realized they didn’t have the capacity to give June Bug the time she needed to live up to what Tiana had been training her for. They reached out to Lakeland to ask if there might be room for June Bug in the equine program, and the protocols for starting a scholarship or bursary.
June Bug became part of the program at Lakeland in fall 2023. Current students have been working on her training, preparing her for sale at the 2024 Round Up Sale on March 23. Funds raised from June Bug’s sale will be added to the Tiana Friesen Memorial Fund, which will be used to create a scholarship in her honour.
“It’s something that touched us to be able to do,” says Julie. “Because of our own circumstances, our ability to help Tiana financially go to college was very limited. We would occasionally send her gift cards for gas or groceries or that kind of thing but we didn’t have the money to send her to college. We know that there are other kids out there whose parents might not be able to support their kids going to college, as much as they want to. This is a way of us just helping where we can.”
In the aftermath of Tiana’s death, Julie has connected with many people who knew her daughter, and the one thing they all seem to recall about her was how determined and genuine she was.
“Everything that girl had ever done in her life was done at 150 per cent. She didn’t quit just because she was tired or didn’t feel like doing it. It just wasn’t an option,” Julie says. “She was so willing to connect with other people. She was always curious about them, wanting to build relationships with them, and make sure they all knew how important and valued they were.”
The other thing Julie knows Tiana will be remembered for is harder to quantify.
“It was her effervescence and her confidence,” she says. “She would let others talk about the difficulties or struggles they were facing and be both a listening ear and their cheerleader. Her faith was a foundational piece of that. She often wondered how God would use her horse learning and school interactions. Though Tiana wouldn’t have said that at all - she always seemed like she knew what she was doing in her life like she had it all mapped out.”
June Bug will be sold at The Round Up at Lakeland College’s Vermilion campus on March 23, 2024. For more information, see the Round Up catalogue here and online bids will be accepted at www.dlms.ca.
Donations to support the Tiana Friesen Memorial Fund can be made at lakelandcollege.ca/donate. Please select Award/Scholarship/Bursary from the drop-down menu and then write Tiana Friesen Memorial in the space below.
Photos: Top - Tiana Friesen during her time as a student at Lakeland College. Bottom - June Bug, who will be sold at The Round Up, with funds raised supporting the Tiana Friesen Memorial Fund.