Elizabeth Ann (Betty) Poyser, 83, of Pinehurst, North Carolina, died Tuesday, April 27, 2010, at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst.

Mrs. Poyser is survived by her daughter, Georgia Tennant, of Warm Springs, Va.; two grandsons, Robert Eugene and Bryan Edward Tennant, of Millboro, Va.; a sister, Nance Mustin, of Southern Pines, NC; a brother, Paul R. Marsh Jr. of Eureka, Mont.; two nephews, Todd and Brian Marsh, of Catlett, Va.; and her beloved Boston terrier, Mofa.

She was predeceased by her parents and her late husband, Harold Edward "Ned" Poyser (June 3, 2006).

She was born August 7, 1926, in Washington, D.C., to the late Paul R. and Helen Barber Marsh.

She attended the University of Maryland and graduated from Virginia Tech (1949) in Blacksburg, Va., with a degree in agriculture.

Mrs. Poyser was an accomplished horsewoman, winning numerous prizes in shows in Virginia, where her parents had moved when she was a young girl. She was a member of the Casanova Hunt Club in Fauquier County, Va. She taught riding at Camp Nimrod in the summer of 1950 and helped to build the riding program from four or five uneducated horses with a tiny riding ring on the side of a hill to 15-plus well-trained horses used for teaching and showing. During that summer she met and later married the director's son, Ned Poyser.

For 30 years, she farmed a 150-acre farm in the Hot Springs Valley of Virginia, while her late husband, Ned, was an executive at Westvaco, now known as MeadWestvaco. In addition to farming, she rode and showed horses, skied, sculpted, ran, danced, fox hunted with the famed Melvin Poe, piloted aircraft, sheared sheep, shoed horses and traveled extensively.

She and her husband moved to Moore County (North Carolina) in the late 1990s and purchased a 6 1/2 acre piece of property off Linden Road with a house, two small stables and three paddocks. After moving here, she became a member of the Pinehurst Rotary Club, the Weymouth Center and attended the N.C. Symphony where she occasionally volunteered. She continued to farm, ride horses, ski and even took up clogging.

A celebration of life service will be held at 5:30 p.m. Monday, May 3, 2010, at McDonald's Chapel. Inurnment will follow the service.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Moore Humane Society, P.O. Box 203, Southern Pines, NC 28388 or Garth Newel Music Center, P.O. Box 240, Warm Springs, VA 24484. Online condolences may be made at www.bolesfuneralhome.com.

The Boles Funeral Home of Southern Pines is assisting the family.