Week Five with Extension by Cheyenne Van Echo

Introducing the 2022-2023 Maryland FFA State President for her retiring address. 

I had another great week with University of Maryland Extension. Monday I participated in our weekly connection zoom meeting where we discussed personal missions and visions with Debbie Simpkins as well as agricultural conflict resolution with Kay-Megan Washington. The vision/mission statement I have come up with is: continue my education to pursue a career in veterinary medicine where I work closely with producers to maintain the health and wellbeing of their livestock. I have always had a passion for agriculture and my heart is drawn towards working with animals. Combining this passion with my appreciation for science, I have found large animal veterinary medicine to be the perfect career for my values and vision. My vision is to work closely with producers to care for their livestock. This vision informs my mission to continue my education in pursuit of a DVM as this level of expertise is the best way for me to consult producers in the area of animal health and welfare. In the meeting we were asked to brianstorm things we can do today to work towards our mission/vision. Something I can do right now is work on my VMCAS application to veterinary school. By dedicating time to this application I can give myself the best shot at getting accepted to my preferred program to begin my pursuit of a degree in veterinary medicine.

On this call we also heard from Kay-Megan Washington, the Director of the Maryland Agricultural Conflict Resolution Service. She discussed her non-traditional introduction to the agricultural industry as she never had intentions of working in this field. As a trained psychiatrist she found her place in this industry working with conflict resolution, a huge stressor for many family run operations. This was a neat perspective to hear and again opened my eyes to the numerous niches of the agricultural industry that often go unnoticed.

Tuesday through Thursday I attended the 95th Maryland FFA Convention hosted by the University of Maryland in College Park. On Tuesday I judged the Agricultural Sales CDE and on Wednesday I judged Junior Extemporaneous Public Speaking. I competed in both of these CDEs when I was in FFA and it felt great to give back to the organization by moving to the other side of the table to help judge these events. I also helped backstage with the evening sessions and got to introduce the Maryland FFA State President for her retiring address. During this convention I was able to promote Extension by sharing my internship experiences and answering any questions that students and other volunteers had about the program. 

At the 95th Maryland FFA Convention with my high school chapter Catoctin. 

I ended the week on Friday at WMREC moving the cattle and sheep groups in the back pasture to their new field and worked on computer tasks on our list.

One of the cattle groups at WMREC posing for a cute picture on Friday.