So I have not blogged for a while so I thought I would get everyone back up to date. The week after my wonderful visit with Graham (refer to previous blog) I was privileged to be able to visit Northwest Career Center located only a short 15 minute drive from campus right of off Sawmill road. I had an outstanding time being able to visit with everyone there! See since this is a career center things are set up much differently and I only gave one workshop all day which was to the small animals’ class. I had a blast seeing all of your truly unique and creative images that you made, you all should become professionals each one was really good. After spending some time in the classroom and presenting my workshop it was time to go see ALL the animals. Although I am embarrassed to admit this I will because well if I didn't I am sure the students at Northwest CC would be very willing to tell you, but I am a tiny, little bit scared of small animals. You would think the "small animals" title of the class should have scared me away but I thought I could get over this, although in some ways I was wrong. Alright I told you, yes I know silly, I mean you would think I could get over it after all my years showing livestock but there is just something about it. I can handle any hog, lamb, steer, and for the most part horse you through out me but when you put me in a room with birds, mice, hamsters, snakes, ect. well we can just say that it may get interesting. I was able though to allow a bird to perch on my shoulder for about 4 seconds without completely freaking out, and I call that a good day!

After reluctantly leaving my great visit at Northwest Career Center with so many awesome experiences including Ms. Crank making sure I knew I was silly for being afraid and her and her helpers "aka students and fellow FFA members" attempt to make me touch or put every animal in the room on me. I headed back to The Ohio State University for well, university things. I have since had class, class, and well more class with a few exams and quizzes mixed in there. Other than that I headed home this Tuesday to do my duty as the 2007 Benjamin Logan Snowball Queen and crown my lucky predecessor. Then when Wednesday rolled around Lyndsey and I headed over to the Schott and saw Will Ferrell in his "Funny or Die" comedy tour. Yes, we saw Will Ferrell in case you did not quite grasp that. He even came out as Ron Burgundy and interviewed the president of the university the one and only Gordon Gee! Then early this morning I got up to get ready to teach in my Ag and Extension Education 230 class with my wonderful partner Jed, and well we blew it away oh yeah we rocked! All in all it has been a very exciting and eventful week. To conclude it Lyndsey and I are going to get our hair cut tomorrow together, I find it exciting, and then Saturday we have a state officer meeting at the FFA Center. It will be great to see all the state officers again at once, and I can't wait to see all of you soon!

Stay Classy Ohio FFA! (it's only fitting)

*Shalie*

Happy New Year!

Already this year has been a busy one with starting back at school. This quarter I am taking AED Econ 200, Math 148, English, and Ag and Extension Education 230. We are already well into the swing of things and midterms are coming up soon.

I have also been able to get back into the FFA grove as last Thursday myself and the rest of the state officers meet to have a meeting and on Friday spent the day working on banquet speeches so that we are all prepared to have some great speeches to share with all of you at your banquets, that are surprise I know, coming up soon!

Then on Saturday MFE began and let me tell you I had a great time. I was privileged to be a member of the Mighty Orange Squirrels campsite and then had a great time with my table a proud representation of Gallipolis, New Bremen, and North Union. Sunday morning we wrapped up MFE with our closing season, we all headed out to Red Robin for some lunch and then I was headed home for a shorter drive in the morning to Graham.

I then headed to Graham on Monday for a chapter visit. I had a great time and was able to present to two freshman classes and then two more sophomore classes. I then returned home took a short nap and had dinner with my family and then headed back to Graham for their Greenhand degree ceremony. I had a great time visiting with everyone before and then again after the meeting! Thanks, as I truly had a great time!

So that is about all I have for now, I am home for the long holiday weekend and getting ready to head back to school soon. I am looking forward to this Friday and my chapter visit with Northwest Career Center.

Everyone have an awesome week!

-Shalie

I am sure that everyone can agree that this has been one busy December as every December seems to be. I hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas!

To give you just a quick recap of my December. It started with the Hardin Northern leadership night on December 1, this was a great time and I really enjoyed dominating (almost) in the corn hole tournament with Dustin! The week progressed on and my first set of finals in college came and went. I must say this was a very stressful time, but not nearly as bad as I had expected.

The following week I headed to both USV and West Liberty for chapter visits. On Thursday I was at USV while Friday I headed to West Liberty, both schools are only about a half an hour from my house and so it was nice to be able to visit schools so close to my home. At USV we had a good time experimenting with balancing balls on craft sticks. While at West Liberty we had a great time making all of our images of leadership and displaying them on the walls of Ms. Nicol's classroom.

Then Christmas season came at me full swing, as I spent a lot of time wrapping presents, spending time with family, and shopping! I am ending tonight with my last family Christmas and am preparing for the New Year. I hope that this is a great new year for each of you along with an amazing new year for the Ohio FFA.

Thought I would update everyone on my latest travels.
On Wednesday the 14th Tyler and I headed to Amanda Clearcreek for what turned out to be an amazing leadership night. This was a very large group with approximately 200 students and 6 state officers but it was a blast. We started off with some great breakout workshops, I know I had a great time and I hope you all did as well, and there was truly never a dull moment. Then as we gathered for our final activity I must say that the "lambs" truly did dominate. We were then able to eat some great lunch meat sandwiches which I was so happy to have as I had not been able to eat much of a lunch before I left campus.
Then on Friday I traveled north to Van Buren, for a program of 20 students I was amazed at all they were accomplishing. I was also able to work with a science class and had a great time working with them on goal setting and time management. In true Ohio State spirit we celebrated the OSU/Michigan rivalry with a tailgating party complete with walking tacos, delicious buckeyes made by Lacy, and a secluded table for those... Michigan fans.
To cap off the week we all watched Ohio State BEAT Michigan and that is a good day in my book.
So now we are moving closer to Thanksgiving and I love Thanksgiving, great food and family, you can't get much better. Interesting fact: Americans consume over 675 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
Happy Thanksgiving!

-Shalie

Getting back into the swing of things after National Convention, I have been able to participate in both a leadership night at River Valley and a chapter visit with Big Walnut.
I had a blast at River Valley meeting a lot of new people, making very creative creations during the workshops, and eating pizza, drinking mt. dew, and visiting before I had to head home for the evening.
A week later on the following Friday I was able to leave campus and head up to Big Walnut I had a great time with the freshman, juniors, and seniors; although sadly the sophomores where on a field trip to the career center, I hope that it went well. I was able to visit with some excellent Big Walnut girls before my classes began and then again during lunch.
Saturday the state officers and I had a meeting at the FFA Center, we were able to accomplish a lot working on everything from leadership nights to those awesome greenhand speeches.
I have had a wonderful past two weeks and can't wait till next week with the Amanda Clearcreek leadership night and Van Buren chapter visit coming up!

-Shalie