Beef Extension Intern- Tucker W.

Week 6

Week 6 was all about the State Fair in Jackson. On Monday I helped Mrs. Elwanda Shook sort retinal images. Like humans have our own unique fingerprints, each animal has a unique retinal scan. Every market animal and commercial breeding animal shown at State Fair and Dixie National is scanned in mid-September. After each division the champion and reserve animal must be rescanned to ensure it is the same animal that was validated in September. I sorted each animal’s retinal scan in numerical order according to their ear tag, so images could be easily found when animals are rescanned. That was my main office job for the week before heading to the State Fair. On Saturday at the fair I helped with the FFA and 4-H Livestock Judging Contest. I helped ensure the classes made it to the Equine Center and were in the proper pens. I also helped Corey, Dr. Karisch’s grad student, take reasons for a class of breeding ewes. There were over 100 kids in the contest which made it a great success.

MSU Extension Intern- Logan H.

Well this week I was moving slow, still trying to catch up from the horse show last week. I cleaned out the cooler from the horse show that still had drinks in it and then I worked on clearing out papers from old horse shows. I went through files and then I cleaned out old score cards from shows with lambs, steers, and market goats.

I proofed the regional entries for the regional horse show that is coming up at the end of the month for Dr. Jousan. I am pretty happy to not be going to another horse show, as it is tiring and long. The regional horse show is going to be held in Raleigh, North Carolina. After I had finished clearing out files, I labeled and put up the photographs that kids submitted in the 4-H contest. The pictures I hung were the winners for each category. The photos were of excellent quality. Many of the 4-H kids are very talented. 

This week I was surprised with a nice thank you note from Mr. Crow, the livestock judging coach, for helping with the livestock judging camp he put on earlier this month. It made my day, to know I was helping and doing a suitable job with my tasks. Due to the holiday this week, it was dull and quiet, as most of the people in the office were on vacation. Here in Mississippi, many companies shut down the entire week of Fourth of July, as many people use this week as their summer vacation. My tasks grew fewer and farther between as the week drug on. Thursday I printed labels and labeled envelopes to be mailed out for Dr. Karisch.

Next week will be busier as I will be helping Ms. Jennifer Williams again. I will assist her at the dairy camp being put on here by campus at the old bull barn. Then, Wednesday next week, I will go with Ms. Williams again for a NASA camp that it being put on for 4-H students. I am not sure what will all be involved with these camps, but I feel they will be interesting. It will be nice to have some new scenery.

Throughout this week, I practiced my organizational skills by helping with clearing out files and having to re-arrange folders by county. I also had to organize the regional horse show entries that I proofed. Overall, I just tried to keep busy. With so many people gone it was hard to find things to help with, especially because I completed all the work I had to do on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday morning I restocked the cooler that I drained and cleaned out for Dr. Jousan so he can take those beverages with him to the regional horse show.

I am looking forward to the camps that I will be assisting with. Next week should be more upbeat and interesting.

MSU Extension Intern- Week 2- Logan H.

On Monday June 9, I helped Mr. Crow, the livestock judging coach with getting some things organized for the three-day livestock judging camp he was putting on. I helped label and organize the room assignments for the high school students who were going to stay in the dorms here on campus. Later that morning I helped Mrs. Crow with the check-in of all the students by giving them the keys to their rooms, the maps of campus, and their schedules. Later that afternoon I took photos of the kids judging sheep out at the beef unit.

From Wednesday through Saturday I was out of town helping with the Northeast 4-H district horse show in Verona. Ms. Jennifer Williams, an extension agent for Webster County, and Ms. Lisa Stewart, the county coordinator were the two women I worked with. Ms. Williams and I worked the check-in table together; she checked the competitor’s registration papers and I would get their back numbers for them. On Friday, we were working the check-in table, when all of a sudden we heard someone screaming out of distress and pain. A 4-H student was coming through the alley way with his horse and somehow the horse was spooked and had pushed the boy up against the hinge on the panels in the alley way. As everyone crowded around, Ms. Williams and I went and got chairs for the boy’s parents so they could sit with him as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. As I looked on I saw Ms. Stewart calming and comforting the student’s mother as they waited. As it turned out the boy was fine just sore and his muscles hurt in his back. He returned later to the show to watch.

On a happier note, I met two little girls who were in the special needs class for western pleasure- showmanship and they were delightful. It was nice to see other adults and children giving encouragement to these girls by letting them know they were their fans. After the girls were told by so many people that they were their fan, they began signing autographs for everyone. Paige and Waverly, the two girls, came to the check-in table to give us their autographs and I spoke with them for a moment. It was a happy experience to feel grateful for what I have been blessed with, but also to see that I and others had brought smiles to these girl’s faces.

With all these experiences this week, I am able to make connections to the things I have learned from my major in leadership. My skills have improved in collaborating with others to help organize the check-ins for these events and also it helped me to better my communication skills. Throughout my leadership classes, the concept of empowering others has come up time and again. By giving encouragement to those sweet girls, Paige and Waverly, I feel it did empower them and I helped to make a small difference in their lives. On another note, throughout this internship, I have and will keep meeting and working with different people who will teach me new things and I will learn to foster teamwork with different types of individuals. It will also help me to learn how to make things more cohesive in working with different people and teams, whether it is helping to plan and organize events, to also working with others to help benefit the community. Also by working with others at horse shows or the camps I have helped with, these things will help me to further my skill in problem solving by coming up with solutions to hick-ups in my work tasks.

I am looking forward to what lies ahead this summer in working with a diversity of people and tasks. The people I have met so far have made my job interesting, as well as fun.

My First Week as an Extension Intern- Logan Hartson

My name is Logan Hartson and I am currently working as an intern in the Animal and Dairy Sciences Department with Dr. Brandi Karisch and Dr. Dean Jousan for the summer. I am from Texas and am a senior at Texas A&M University. I will graduate in December with a bachelor’s of science in agricultural leadership and development. As a child I was raised in a rural area on forty acres with horses and chickens and many other animals. I have been riding horses and competing in rodeos since I was five years old. With this as my background, I would like to work in the agriculture field. I am not decided on what career I will pursue, but after completing this internship I will have a basis to make my decision on whether this would be a possible career choice.

To say the least the first day of my internship was interesting. I had done a run-through with my mother a couple days before my job was to start so I would know how to get to work. Well as it turned out, my first day I left an hour early and was late anyway because I got lost. The day quickly turned around after I arrived for work. Dr. Karisch introduced me to Mrs. Graves, who is the undergraduate coordinator for the Animal and Dairy Sciences Department. Quickly after being introduced I helped Mrs. Graves set up a booth at the Colvard Student Union on main campus for the Animal and Dairy Sciences Department. This was to display information to the FFA students on campus that were here for FFA convention. After Mrs. Graves and I returned from the student union, I went with her to give a tour to a group of FFA students of the Animal and Dairy Sciences Department. After the kids saw the lab rooms, we took them to the horse unit and beef unit. The kids were given a hands-on activity by being able to feel the rumen of a cow. The cow was a cannulated cow as I learned, which means they have a permanent opening in their side where the rumen is located. This makes it easier for the veterinarians and researchers to study their digestive system. All the students were given the opportunity to reach in and pull foodstuff from the rumen. The tour was also supposed to include the dairy unit, but because of our time constraint we were not able to go to that location. The next day I actually was given the opportunity to judge an event for the FFA convention. I and two other students did the judging for juniors and seniors in the extemporaneous speaking competition. The kids were only given a short amount of time to pick a topic question and then write a speech answering the question. It was entertaining and fun to see how well these kids performed. On the fourth I traveled with an extension agent from Webster County, with Ms. Jennifer Williams, to Fulton for the 4-H Achievement Day. I was a volunteer for the cattle, sheep, swine, and meat goat category. There were four kids who had presentations in this area and were being judged, as it was a competition. Tomorrow I will be helping the livestock judging coach, Mr. Crow, with the day camp he is putting on at the horse park. I will assist him with the younger aged kids in helping them find their groups and where they are supposed to be, helping with the check-in booth, and also photographing the kids while they learn what the judges look for on different animals. I am looking forward to the vast number of activities that I will partake in over the course of the summer!

Update: Here’s a photo from the Livestock Judging Day Camp