DEWEY boy who lost colt gets new colt from KOTV viewer

Tuesday, July 24th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

A little over a week ago, KOTV first told you about a boy whose year-old colt was shot and killed. Washington County Sheriffâ€™s department investigators say they got several leads, but have made no arrests. After the story aired, many viewers wanted to help out.

There is a happy ending according to KOTVâ€™s Tami Marler. Jared Hewitt is walking in to what he calls "horse heaven." The smile on his face is a far cry from the pain he felt just a week ago. "I would want them to know that they probably did a very very bad thing; and they should regret what they have done." Last weekend, his parents, Jana and Gene Hewitt came home from a church function to find their son's colt lying in the corral. Someone had shot Scamper in the head, shattering Jared's dream of growing up with his first horse. Father, Gene Hewitt, "I can replace money, I can replace stolen items.

An eleven year old's first colt - you can't replace." And how do you explain such an act of violence to a child? How do you teach him that not all people do such horrible things? "We've tried to get Jared to understand that we need to pray for this person, because they've definitely got something wrong that they could do something like this."

It was a horrible story that had the potential to destroy a boy's faith. But within minutes of KOTV running Jared Hewitt's story - you responded. Dozens of people called, offering not only to restore Jared's horse, but his faith in people as well. "I think we had something like 29 different calls, from wanting to buy a horse, to giving us a horse."

Patricia Burney was one of the first viewers to call - offering to give Jared a horse, no strings attached. "We seen it on the news, and we know how it is with an animal; and we just decided that he needed something to replace, and we had extras, and we wanted him to have his pick." Gene: "We talked to these folks and uh, felt good about coming here, so we come down here and we looked at a few horses."

It's a tough decision for an 11-year-old to make. He knows he can never replace Scamper, but he's learning first-hand an important lesson. One his father preaches in church. It's like something straight out of the Bible. "Talks about seven-fold, he will restore seven-fold - out of Proverbs - and uh, of course with Jared on this, it's been about 28 or 29 fold." Jared: "It's showed me that people have a real good heart. And just there's some real nice people out in the world." "Just tell us what you want to do and we'll do it." A couple of hours - and five horses - later, Jared's decision is made. "Yeah, that one right over there. That sorrel."

He picked a registered quarter horse, maybe he'll name him â€˜Flashâ€™, and definitely he'll train him, and ride him, and love him. It's a match made in horse Heaven, by some good Samaritans he'll never forget.