FROM STERN
Precious at home in Willow Creek, California, with the family horses In the tiny California town of Willow Creek, population 1,700, four dogs erupt from within a blue wooden house, barking angrily. Precious Reynolds, a wiry little girl with shiny black hair and almond-shaped blue eyes, runs along behind them. “Be quiet! Behave!” she scolds as she opens the gate to the yard.
Precious, her two sisters, her brother, and her cousin live here with their grandparents, Shirlee Roby, 65, a California highway construction worker, and Jack, 80, who runs the household. The rural setting of the Robys’ home suits Precious. She’s an avid wrestler and animal lover and regularly wins “mutton busting” competitions, in which kids sit rodeostyle on the backs of frantic sheep for as long…