| Home Characters
Cast
Credits
Episodes
Links
|
AUGGUST
"Auggie" CICEROS
- Was sent to Horizon by the courts. It was either Hoizon or
a Youth Authority lockup -- and the constant threat of being sent to "juvie"
keeps him in line.
- The youngest of five children, he grew
up in a middle class home on the fringe of the barrio. Although he wasn't
a gang member, he was a tagger and had gained quite an impressive reputation.
Eventually, he was busted.
- The court took mercy on Auggie who, at 15, can barely read or write.
All through school, he was placed in educable mentally handicapped classes.
Horizon realized the real problem: he's profoundly dyslexic.
- His high IQ was discovered, making Auggie perhaps the highest native
intelligence at Horizon.
- He's also a talented artist -- which would explain why he turned to
tagging as the only place he could find respect and admiration.
DAISY
LIPENOWSKI
- Also known as Daisy Graves (her perferred name), she has hid the pain
of her alcoholic parents beneath a mask of "Goth" make-up, clothes,
and piercings.
- When years of emotional abuse at home began
to threaten her physically, she fought back. She assualted her father
with a seven-iron, and she was quickly shipped off to Horizon.
- Insightful and harshly honest, Daisy is
always willing to point out other people's problems and faults, but carefully
hides her own inner pain and rage.
EZRA
FRIEDKIN
- He was adopted at birth, by parents
who were looking more for a solution to their marital difficulties than
for a child to love. .
- When the marriage exploded into a bitter, ugly divorce, Ezra was caught
in the middle of his parents' vitriolic arguments. The experience forced
him to be a pleaser, a mediator, a peacemaker, and a rule-follower.
- To comfort himself, Ezra turned to drugs,
and descended downward on a trail that led to ketamine, which almost killed
him. After he was revived in the ER and spent 10 days recovering, he was
sent to Horizon.
JULIETTE
WAYBOURNE
- She's often referred to as "Princess" or the beauty queen
girl, and seems like a sweet and perfect girl
- Unlike other kids at Horizon, Juliette has never been molested, isn't
adopted, and has no learning difficulties ... and yet she continually
assaults and abuses herself with such extremes as bulimia and self-mutilation.
- Her pain and problems are the least obvious of the group's -- until
you examine her family life. Her perfectionist mother has been through
a succession of husbands' in the last nine years, Juliette has grown up
in three different households with eight siblings of three different fathers.
Exacerbating her unstable surroundings, almost all of the children are
extremely successful overachievers. With no way to compete with their
accomplishments, she chose physically destructive measures to get the
love and attention she craved.
- Her natural father, an airline pilot who
was away often, finally brought Juliette to Horizon.
KATHERINE
"Kat" ANN CABOT
- Katherine was also adopted. But, unlike Ezra, she was adopted by kind,
loving -- and white -- parents.
- Though she always knew she ws adopted, a sense of alienation set in
as she grew older, and she felt she didn't fit in with either the white
or the black culture. That confusion prompted her grades to slip and for
her to withdraw from her talents as a gifted athlete.
- The accidental death of her sister (the birth daughter of her adopted
parents) also contributed to her lapsing into depression.
- She was finally sent to Horizon by her parents.
SCOTT
BARRINGER
- A big, handsome, athletic 16-year-old, he is quickly dubbed
the place's "bad boy." On the surface, Scott has everything"
athletic skills, intelligence, even musical talent. But his parents' --
albeit amiable -- divorce, put Scott in the middle of their breakup and
he feels partially responsible.
- At 14, his father married a young, sexy woman Scott disparagingly referred
to as a "trophy wife." Closer to Scott's age than her husband's,
that stepmother seduced him half a dozen times before Scott's thoroughly
confused and rebellious behaviours put an end to it.
- Without revealing this horrifying secret, Scott berated her to his father,
who tried everything to bring the two of them together to be friends.
And the more this clueless father tried, the more Scott acted out.
- Soon he was into drugs and petty theft. His school work disintegrated
and he was thrown off the football team. As a last resort for help, his
father decided to send him to Horizon.
SHELBY
MERRICK
- Despite her cute, fresh-face innocent look -- not to mention youth --
Shelby has learned to use sexuality as both weapon and reward, and as
a cover for profound lack of self-esteem and self-worth.
- Although Shelby has a cadre of defences and presents a tough couldn't-care-less
exterior, she is actually very frightened. Her current state came from
years of sexual and emotional abuse by her stepfather while her mother
knowingly looked the other way.
- At 14 she ran away and spent close to a year on the streets, turning
to prostitution and drugs until she ultimately located her natural father
in Los Angeles. Though well-meaning, he could neither control his wild
daughter or deal with her deep emotional scars. So, he made a deal with
juvenile authorities that allowed her to go Horizon rather than Juvenile
Hall.
SOPHIE
BECKER
-She had met Peter during one of his rehab stints, and the two instantly
became friends. They share an intense love for daredevil sports and, in
fact, after a three year absence, Sophie "dropped" back into
Peter's life via a parachute. Eager for her not to leave his life again,
Peter eventually coaxes the reluctant, always-running Sophie to become
more involved at Mt. Horizon.
- Clearly, the two share more than just an interest in extreme hobbies,
and their friendship could lead to romance. In more than one way, and
not on more than one occasion, Sophie arouses suspicious and jealousy
in Peter's ex-wife, Chloe, who -- right or not -- regards her as the threat
that caused their marriage to fail.
PETER
SCARBROW
-He has been the headmaster and chief administrator of Mt. Horizon High
for the past three years and is determined that each of his charges leave
the school with self-worth intact and a better life ahead of them.
- Working with the school's owner and founder, Frank Markasian, they have
built Horizon into one of the finest, most progressive and most successful
"emotional growth" schools in the Pacific Northwest. On the
physical side, Peter is strong and healthy, an outdoor athlete into running,
biking, climbing, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, windsurfing and hang-gliding.
But these passions have come to Peter only recently.
-Prior to meeting Frank, Peter had bottomed-out. A certifiable success
at 28 at one of the biggest brokerages on Wall Street, Peter seemed to
have it all. But to keep up with the incredible, physical demands of the
business, he turned to cocaine, and then to heroine -- which became his
undoing. Gradually, at first, his life started spinning out of control
until, ultimately, his marriage, his bank account and his Porsche were
total wrecks.
- After his first overdose and a stint at a rehab clinic, he began using
again and ended up on the streets. Recovering at a Washington hospital
after another near-fatal overdose, he met Frank, whose simple, straightforward
philosophy struck a chord with Peter. The two men bonded and Frank invited
him to Mt. Horizon to clear his mind, cleanse his body in the clean mountain
air and facilitate his recovery. Frank slowly became Peter's mentor, best
friend and surrogate father. And except for an occasional trip back to
New York, Peter has remained at Mt. Horizon ever since.
|