#NCBA12

For all you "twitter-ers" (or is it tweeters?) out there, you have probably seen the hash tag #NCBA12 or #CIC12 floating around. That is where I will be this week! NCBA stands for National Cattleman's Beef Association and CIC is Cattle Industry Convention. It rotates to various locations every year and this year it's in Nashville, TN...the perfect place for a convention in my mind! People travel from all over the U.S. to come to this conference. This morning I met a gentleman from New Mexico and my roommate is from Florida. The Kansas State University Collegiate CattleWomen will be bringing a group of about 30 girls along with many other universities that will follow suite.
So what am I doing here? For the past two years, I have attended the convention as an attendee. This year, I have the opportunity to see how the entire convention is orchestrated as an NCBA intern! I am here with 15 other interns and we are all either undergrad or graduate students at different universities across the country, literally! We stretch from Florida to Washington.  We all have at least one thing in common, our passion for the beef industry. Yesterday while meeting the interns, I was amazed at how many things I had in common with each of them - we either knew the same people, had similar backgrounds, majors, etc! I am so excited about the many people I will meet and connections that will be made this week!
If you are in Nashville at the convention, you can find me in a black shirt (along with the other thousand people that will have black shirts on!). There are expected to be around 7,000 cattleman in attendance, just a few!

Since Nashville is only 5 hours away, I was able to drive. Tennessee is a beautiful state!

The view from our hotel room window...gorgeous!  This is actually all inside a building but the roof is glass so if feels like you are walking outside. The hotel is huge.

The hotel is so big it has it's very own Vera Bradley store :)

One of the fountains in the hotel at night.

Last night we had rib eye steak for dinner at a little restaurant across the way, the waiters/waitresses were very talented and performed throughout the night. Really cool atmosphere and great food!

Pecan pie...incredible.

The calm before the storm this morning. By noon today this place will probably be packed and crazy! 

Teaching kids valuable life skills

This weekend I had the privilege of judging the Montgomery Co. Livestock Show in Winona, MS. This was my first show to judge in the South and I had a BLAST! From the moment I arrived I was blown away by the nice families, how welcoming everyone was, and how polite the kids were! Before the show started I was "observing" the families and all of them were working together to get their animals ready and laughing and having a good time! I was very obvious that the kids were excited, happy to be there, and loved every minute of what they were doing! The kids did an awesome job showing and had done really well working with and preparing their animals prior to the show.

After the show I had the opportunity to visit with one of the Moms. She was sharing with me why she felt that 4-H, agriculture, and livestock were so important for her kids and their family. Showing livestock is a great opportunity for families to spend time together. In today's time, as sad as it is, this is becoming a rarity. The kids are responsible for getting up before school every morning to feed their animals and then as one little boy put it, "When I get off the bus from school, I got outside to my lambs so that I can exercise them, work with them to get ready for the shows, and feed them." During showmanship I asked the kids a variety of questions and one of them being, "Tell me about your lamb (or goat, heifer, etc.)". Every one of these kids could tell me in detail what they were doing at home to properly take care of and manage their animals. This teaches kids responsibility and a work ethic at a young age. It also teaches them how to care for livestock.  Most of these kids also had a lot of self confidence and weren't shy while I was asking them questions. They have to think on their feet while in the show ring and this will translate to job interviews many years down the road. These kids are learning life skills as early as 5-7 years of age that are irreplaceable. When they are grown and mature they will know how to work, obtain and hold a job, and how to be professional in business settings.
I was very proud of all these kids. They did an awesome job and should be commended for all their time and effort they have put into their projects!

The kids and I after the show!

"You want me to put my hand where?"

Each semester my lab mate, Katie, and I help teach the livestock reproduction lab.  Our lab is unique from many universities because the students have the opportunity to learn the technique of artificial insemination (A.I.) and practice weekly for a semester.  The process of A.I. includes inserting an A.I. gun or rod into the vagina and through the cervix so the semen can be deposited into the uterine body. The millions of sperm eventually travel up the horns and to the ampulla of the oviduct where the sperm will meet the egg and one lucky little guy will fertilize it. Many of these students are in the pre-veterinary program but many not necessarily have a livestock background.  For the students that have limited to no experience working around livestock, this gives them hours of hands-on experience prior to applying and entering the veterinary program. For students that come from a ranch background, it gives them the opportunity to learn the technique, become proficient at it and apply it in their own herds back home. 

 

The first day starts the same every semester with the students trying to find the cervix in the cow.  As we get further into the semester, they transition from the hesitancy they experience on the first day to successfully artificially inseminating a cow! This is the part I enjoy the most, when you see that lightbulb go off and the student succeeds. For those of you that are familiar with A.I., you know that it is something that requires a lot of patience and practice before being successful. When learning, it can be extremely frustrating so I get to do lots of preaching on patience! 

Here is one of the students on the first day! 

Although Day 1 is a shocker for most of the students, they always have a good time! My favorite quote of the day was, "Man, once you get inside there it's a different story...I didn't know it was going to be like that!". Never a dull moment in repro lab...