Graduate, mountaineer, public speaker, writer – Mandy Horvath has many titles, including seven-time world record holder.

The first-generation grad, who majored in English with a minor in anthropology, is a local public figure and bilateral amputee who has climbed the Manitou Incline, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Cerro Tusa and Pikes Peak (which she has climbed twice) and ascended the Statue of Liberty stairs, all without the use of prosthetics. She has also spoken internationally, recently appeared on “Naked and Afraid,” is writing a memoir and will also be featured in an upcoming documentary. Mandy was struck by a locomotive in July 2014, severing her lower extremities from her body above the knee.

“I started climbing mountains and monuments for charity and conservation in 2018,” said Mandy. “I was going through a particularly dark moment in my personal life and I was enrolled in school and doing other things, but I didn’t feel like I had found my purpose or why I was given this second chance.”

Mandy resolved to climb the Manitou Incline and was vocal about her determination, which was met with disapproval and dissuasion. After an especially bad period of mental health struggles, she received outreach from a friend asking if she still wanted to do the incline that day. Having someone support her instead of trying to stop her was the turning point, and Mandy went straight to the incline for her first ascent.

“It took me five and a half hours, but we made it, and that’s how this all kind of started for me,” Mandy said. “And that night, I didn’t think anything of it, I just crawled into bed, exhausted. I woke up the next day and casually posted about just to share something cool that I did, and within twenty-four hours I had been contacted from international media and every media outlet here locally between here and Denver. Then a month later I planned to climb Pikes Peak.”

Every ascent that Mandy has accomplished has great meaning to her and she has a tattoo to commemorate each, though some stick out for their own reasons.

“One of my favorite movies is Forrest Gump,” she shared. “My dad and I used to watch it on our living room floor while dunking Oreos in milk. After I had my own traumatic experience losing my limbs, it became even more personal for me. I really look up to the character of Lieutenant Dan and relate to him so much, and there’s a scene where he jumps into the water and swims off and Forrest Gump narrates, ‘I think he made his peace with God that day.’ Kilimanjaro was that moment for me. It was the proverbial swimming off, but physically for me it was reaching that sign at the top of that mountain surrounded with so many incredible people.”

A month after Kilimanjaro, Mandy was invited by a friend to their property down in Colombia, South America, to help them assess how to make the property more handicap accessible. While there, she took on Cerro Tusa, a grueling dirt trail with a steep grade that took ten hours to climb.

“​I ​feel ​like ​I ​have ​homes ​in ​so ​many ​different ​places ​of ​the ​world ​now,” said Mandy. “Everything that I’ve done, even Cerro Tusa, is special to me because it’s taught me something new about myself. Even in my most recent experience, going on ‘Naked and Afraid’ as the first amputee, I learned so much about myself. I hope that I continue to get these opportunities to really test my abilities and capabilities and show other people that it’s possible.”

Parallel to Mandy’s mountaineering path has been her college career. It officially started in 2017, but UCCS first piqued her interest when she saw it lit up at night.

“The very first night I was in Colorado Springs I was just visiting a then-boyfriend, and got driven on Austin Bluffs at dusk and the college was all lit up on the hillside,” Mandy recalled. “For whatever reason that night, I decided that I was going to go to college at UCCS and I was going to graduate from there.”

UCCS is where Mandy found her love and talent for writing.

“I originally enrolled as a chemistry major, but in my rhetoric composition course I wrote an introductory essay and the professor, Juliet Green, pulled me to the side and said, ‘You absolutely need to switch your major. This is beyond introductory work, you have a real talent and I really think that you should pursue this,'” said Mandy.

“At the same time, I was getting involved in public speaking and had a few TV appearances,” she added. “All of this came together and Professor M.J. Arjomandi, in the communications department, got me started on the public speaking side of things as well. I never envisioned myself as a writer but I literally have lived a life that is a lot like a movie and people are interested to see what that looks like on paper. And now that I don’t have schoolwork to focus on, I can begin writing my memoir.”

Mandy’s goal is that her book will help others going through difficult times.

“My memoir will be a collection of letters,” she said. “Letters to people, letters to concepts, letters to ideas. It’ll be both a memoir and a self-help book, because I’m going to write about some deeper concepts like forgiveness and trauma. I’m going to frame it as a self-help memoir so that it can literally be a guideline for somebody else’s survival. This was my experience, this is how I reacted, this is what I learned from the situation, and you can take with that whatever you need to and you can leave the rest. And before, I did not feel like I had the knowledge, education or credibility to begin articulating the things that I need to articulate. So, my education became important in that aspect.”

Mandy’s time at UCCS was impactful in not only providing the education she felt was crucial, but also from the teachers she became close to during it.

“Along with Professors Green and Arjomandi, there were Drs. Kristen Ortega, Christopher Bell and Colin Wren – all of these faculty have touched my life in a way that is immeasurable,” said Mandy. “I’m so grateful for the influence, the guidance and the knowledge of the professors that I’ve worked with at UCCS and I am exceptionally proud to now be able to call myself alumni. I’ll take any opportunity to promote UCCS as a college because it has changed my life, and I’m a first-generation graduate so it’s huge for my family too.”