Start of Summer

I hope everyone is enjoying the first days of summer! So far, I survived my high school graduation and have spent the majority of my days at home before summer gets really busy with the exception of tap practice each night (bet you didn't know I have tap danced for twelve years!). My first real FFA excursion was to St. Paul last Wednesday and Thursday for some meetings and team bonding.

On Wednesday, the officer team met to discuss key messages and the theme for the year. It was great to finally see everyone again. BLAST Off seems like a very long time ago.

Derek, Caitlin, Sydney, and Pete had some very exciting and hilarious stories from the Kansas State Convention. We were all excited to hear Ms. Emily Surdez (who spent a week here during our convention) was elected KS State President. I can't wait to see her and the rest of the new teams at NLCSO (National Leadership Conference for State Officers) in only a week! The four who went to KS were also kind enough to let Justin and I (we had to stay home to graduate) in on the fun by getting us some pretty awesome K-State T-shirts.

After we spent some time catching up on every one's lives over the last month, we finally got down to meeting. Ms. Sheryl Meshke of AMPI spent a very lively afternoon teaching us the keys to developing good messages and a meaningful theme. She made the time fly by and before long we had a list of potential themes.

Are brains were pretty fried by that time so we retired to Beta of Clovia and FarmHouse on the U Campus to change out of OD and then hit B Dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings) for a very fun supper together. Then we picked up a movie together and headed back to FarmHouse to work on the year theme as well as camp themes.

The next day, we worked through everything for Greenhand Camp and spent some time narrowing down our theme options. By the end of the day, we decided on "Experience the Legacy" for the 2008-2009 MN FFA theme.

Over the next week, Jake, Cindy, Shari, Trevor, Rachael, Kaylee, Cassie, and Mike will head down south the Austin, MN (birthplace of Spam!!) along with the rest of their region teams for a very exciting POWER conference. Derek, Sydney, and I will be at college orientation at the U of M and Justin will be doing the same at SDSU. Caitlin and Pete, college veterans as they are, get to skip it. All of us will meet up again on Monday to take off for NLCSO in Aurora, Nebraska, and then on to Greenhand camp which is full at this point. Many more posts to come, especially if my laptop arrives in time for NLCSO. There are still a few camp spots open for SLCCL but they are going fast so sign up now!

Goodbye for tonight!