South Dakota State Convention: It's My Life, It's Now or Never

Brian, Shad, Wyatt, Shane, Josh, and Maria certainly know how to put on a great convention! Derek and I met up with Justin and his girlfriend Kristin (who is super awesome!) as well as Cindy Young to take in the 81st South Dakota state convention. As we arrived, we were met with many familiar faces like last year's state officer team of Matt, Sara, Brett, Erin, Lauren, and Noelle and even found ourselves some native Minnesotans like past region three president Vanessa Pooch. Unlike MN, all of their sessions are in one place, the HPER Center where the Jack Rabbits play basketball. One really cool thing that was different from home was some of their CDE awards. In one contest, instead of plaques the winners recieved cordless drills! And in another, the winner was presented with a chain saw!! SD even has a few CDEs that we don't like the radio broadcasting contest and the range plant identification event. The convention flew by and soon we were headed back toward home to set up for our own!

Watertown - Mayer Banquet

First stop on Derek and my three day FFA road trip was the Watertowm Mayer Banquet. I loved getting to see a bunch of super cool girls from SGLC (Amber, Ashely, Hailey, and Casey!) and some awesome boys from SLCCL (Nic and Cole) as well as meet their families. For those of you who were wondering what video I talked about in my speech, here is the link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBTVdnWj1hM

A Region 5 girl's trip to Region 8...

I felt like I was crossing some serious party lines by attending the Region VIII banquet on Tuesday. All friendly (or my and Derek's) rivalry aside, I was very excited about the chance to celebrate a year of accomplishments with the biggest region in the state. Pam Dahlman and I had the pleasure of introducing Mike Sheely for his retiring address. Unfortunately for us, technical difficulties delayed our powerpoint for a few minutes and we had to resort to embarrassing Mike stories to pass the time. Eventually the technology did work and we got to introduce Mike with a whole array of embarrassing pictures in our take on the youtube video Kittens Inspired by Kittens. As promised, the Mike version should be hitting facebook soon. After the awards night was over, we joined the new and old region officers for some relaxing time at Applebees where I found out such facts as Jenny Subra has four camels and Jared Hanson can sing all (or most for sure) of the words to "Poker Face."

Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg Chapter Officer Interviews

After numerous times being interviewed for office, I finally had the chance to sit on the other side of the table while helping to interview the KMS chapter officer candidates. After watering greenhouse plants with Michael and Taylor, we finally got down to business. I was incredibly impressed by the poise, passion, and creativity of all who ran, especially with some of the more interesting questions we threw their way. I know the chapter is in great hands for the coming year.

BOLD Banquet

I think Dorothy said it best in the Wizard of Oz, "There's no place like home!" My trip to the BOLD FFA banquet was one of the most special and meaningful experiences I have had all year. Not only was it my home chapter, but it was also our first banquet in twelve years. With a lot of parent, sponsor, and community support, the night was a huge success. I don't know that I've ever been more excited than when the officer recited opening ceremonies in front of a crowd of nearly one hundred people. Chapter President Brendon and all of the officers put a lot of work into the night and it showed! I've never been so proud to say that I am a member of the BOLD FFA Chapter.

Oh what a Friday!

Friday started out bright and early (or early for a college a student, that is) with a trip to Northrop Auditorium for convention walk through. As we laid out our stage plans, it's hard to believe that it was already eleven months ago that we ran up that ramp onto the stage. From there we headed to a convention advisory board meeting, and then on to CHS for a two hour class in giving effective feedback. Then I headed west on I-94 all the way to Alexandria for the rescheduled Region III banquet. The officer team did an excellent job planning the night and I loved Shari Yurczyk's retiring address based on the incredibly awesome movie Finding Nemo.

AMPI Annual Meeting

American Pride was the theme for Thursday huge dairy get-together. Sheryl Meshke and crew put together a great opening session for these proud dairy producers. The hospitality room full of cheese, milk, and yogurt made for a tasty break. I'm still learning a lot about the dairy industry but couldn't help but be impressed by the pride and passion of every producer we met. I never felt more proud to be a part of agriculture or a citizen of this country as Derek and I presented the American flag in front of the group of veterans. American Pride was definitely a very fitting theme indeed!