Welcome to the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Sunny Arizona, home of the 2013 National Young Farmer and Rancher Conference Okay, well that's what you would think anyway, but this 'sunny' picture happened to be the morning before the rain moved in, and even without the rain, I would look out and think, oh it's nice out, until I went out the door! BRRRR! It was a little chilly, but it sure looked pretty from the balcony.
Don't believe me about the chill? Well, maybe the empty pools will help convince you! If you could see it in the right light you would also be seeing the steam rising from the heated water, but no takers on plunging in or even sitting out, because it was so cold!
But, we weren't there for the poolside attractions, we were there for the conference, and that was well worth the chilly weather.
The 2013 attendees from Nevada were (back row l-r): Jexten, Jamie and Grant Perkins
(Mid l-r) Lucas Tom, Carley Alexander, Andrea and Levi Chandler, Dann and Jessica Mathews, Tami Dahl.
Lacey Tom, Betsy Hardy, Ian Chandler, Stephanie Bunker, and Trina Dalley.
*The shirts that you see on Levi and Dann were from the conference and in support of Feeding America, the foodbank that Farm Bureau and the YF&R partner with each year in our Harvest For All program. THe shirts were $15 and all proceeds went to Feeding America and there was a # sign with a Twitter address to help promote it also (I don't twitter, so I guess I explained it right?)
Jexten and Ian are some of our youngest Nevada Farm Bureau members and met a couple of months ago at the annual meeting, they just kind of go wherever mom and dad drag them!
The conference always starts with an opening session and has several general sessions with big speakers that are usually really enjoyable, sometimes more motivational and humorous, other times very educational. Along with teh general sessions there are smaller 'breakout' or mini-sessions. This one was put on by the graduating class of the Partners for Agricultural Leadership Program or PALS, which just graduated its sixth class. These people are all current or former YF&R members who have excelled and been personally invited to participate in the program that takes 2 years to finish, and trains strong agricultural leaders who can speak to the media and legislators and really be a future asset to Farm Bureau. One of the graduates of this class was Misty Wall from Mona, Utah. Misty and her husband Seth, were on the AFBF YF&R committee a couple of years ago over our area and attended our state meeting in Ely, helping us with the Discussion Meet.
This is another picture of our group, looking pretty snazzy on Sunday. Stephanie Licht (far right) is our State Coordinator and a HUGE help and support of all we do in NV YF&R.
From Bernie Erven, another keynote speaker, we learned about Farm transition--usually a big deal for most YF&R age members of Farm Bureau, and always a topic that we feel we've benefited from, but how to get the older generation to hear it also? I really enjoyed his presentation, just wished that maybe my grandparents could have heard it a year or two ago.
| (From AFBF: Bernie Erven is a professor of agricultural economics and Extension
specialist at The Ohio State University. His teaching, Extension and research
activities are in human resource management, farm management and business
management. Bernie’s Extension and outreach program focuses on labor management
topics such as hiring, training, motivation, compensation and performance
evaluation. In Phoenix, Bernie will talk with Young Farmers & Ranchers about
farm transitions.) The closing session on Monday morning was a light-hearted, yet serious about Ag speaker named Mark Mayfield. In the meantime we attended workshops on everything from leadership to the fiscal budget and whether our towns were farm-friendly and what we could do to make them so. There were workshops for state chairs, promoting ag literacy programs, and economics of taking the lead in the family business. In between sessions the collegiate Discussion Meet was being held, which runs after the same pattern as the regular YF&R Discussion Meet held at the AFBF annual meeting each January. but awards smaller prizes such as scholarship money. This year our collegiate DM winner was not able to represent us due to conflict in schedule, but we hope to have some one back in the competition again next year in Virginia Beach, Virginia!! Well, that's it for not, I'll follow up with more photos and information from the tours we went on in the next post! |
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