What I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving

As I sit here in my apartment, 1800 miles away from my family, I contemplate on life. How much things have changed recently. People who have came into my life, and people who have gone out of it. Would I have guessed in a million years that I would've left California to go to school in the midwest? Never.

So, in honor of Thanksgiving, I think about what I am thankful for in my life:

I am thankful for my family and friends. Now most people would say that first as well, but I think that's because these groups of people are so influential in our lives. I know mine are.

I come from a large Portuguese family. I have 4 aunts, 3 uncles, 14 cousins, and 15 second cousins. We are a very loud, opinionated bunch, because we have to be, it's the only way people could hear us. In fact, if someone new came into this environment it would be very strange for them. The decibel level at our parties are at near stadium audience levels. Thanksgiving and Christmas sound more like concerts than family gatherings. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

These three guys have been the core of my friends as long as I could remember. We have over 48 years of collective friendship between us. We have been through a lot, from having walnut fights, burning our foreheads on hot-wire, charging at my bathroom and bedroom doors, effectively breaking them off the hinges, and all other sorts of shenanigans. The list can go on forever.

I am thankful for my education. If you were to ask me a year ago if I would even be going to college, I wouldn't have had an answer for you. At the time I was just working, trying to save up any money I could. I was afraid I was going to fall into mediocrity, even though I knew I was meant for bigger things. I just took a shot in the dark and started looking at out of state colleges that would have an agricultural communications major. I applied to Kansas State and to my surprise was accepted a few weeks later. I went to visit a couple months after that and realized these people here aren't just faculty, not just students, they're family. So essentially I have two families. Some don't even have one, and for that I am thankful. Not only that, but I'm thankful for a great athletics program here at K-State and being able to watch such an exciting football season. I can't wait for it to be basketball season!

I am thankful for being involved in agriculture in this country. According to Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe, everything comes from two industries: mining and agriculture. I happen to agree. In my opinion, the three noblest professions are being in the military defending our freedoms, teaching children and passing on knowledge, and growing food to feed the world. I genuinely enjoy working as an ambassador and representative of agriculture. This is definitely something I want to have a career in.

So while you are eating your turkey tomorrow and hanging out with your family watching football, take a second to think of what you are thankful for.

AGvocacy in the limelight...

When most people from outside California think of the sunshine state, they like to imagine the "Hollywood lifestyle." In fact, I have had a couple people here in Kansas ask me if I know any famous people. All that I can tell them is that my hometown has produced some famous people, including Star Wars creator George Lucas, Justified Star Timothy Olyphant and Jeremy Renner, who you will see in the Avengers next summer. I have never actually met any movie stars personally. In fact, I have respect for hardly any film or television stars, the same goes with musicians. A lot of them sell out their values and beliefs for fame and fortune.

I have, however, met celebrities of a different kind. These people are the ones who I respect on a much higher level. The people I am talking about are people in the agricultural community promoting and defending the industry. People that risk being personally attacked for supporting an industry that feeds the world. Some of the real celebrities I have met include: Past CA Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura, Past US Secretary of Ag Anne Veneman, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, and the young lady I met yesterday evening.

I'm talking about Teresa Scanlan, but you may know her as Miss America. She is the youngest Miss America ever at only 18 years old, although if you spoke to her you would think that she was much older. Her platform she chose to advocate for during her reign is the promotion of farmers and agriculture, as well as educating about eating disorders, and this woman knows her stuff. She came to give a lecture here on campus about production agriculture and the challenges that we will face in my generation.

Yes, I know I'm blinking. I think when you stand next to Miss America, you look less attractive by comparison.

Here's a better picture.

While she was not raised on a farm, her parents taught her the importance for agriculture. She has a deep respect for farmers and everything they go through day-to-day. I am glad we have someone like her who can intelligently describe our position to mainstream audiences. Her motto for her platform is "Not everyone farms, but everyone has to eat."

I'd like to thank Ms. Teresa Scanlan for coming to Kansas State and even more thanks for her choosing agriculture as her platform and working with farming organizations and charities.

WTF?

On Thursday I participated in what was known as the WTF Day, or in other words, the "Where's the Food...Without the Farmer Day. There is an organization called I Love Farmers...They Feed My Soul founded at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo from a group of agriculture students (some of whom I've known from FFA or MJC) and they wanted to plan a national event on multiple college campuses promoting the American farmer.

When I found out Kansas State wanted to participate I wanted to help. When I was at Cal Poly, I felt bad that I never really helped out with the organization except once at the World Ag Expo, but I always felt guilty for not doing more.

We had two groups of students, one group was in front of the student union, the other in front of the agriculture building. I think for next year we should just concentrate everyone in one location, because I think it shows strength in numbers.

Overall it was a good day, although we may have not gotten the amount of media coverage that we wanted, we still reached a lot of people on campus. And that, in the end, is the most important thing.

Manhattan, KS: A little slice of Americana

So I know it has been a couple weeks since this event took place, but I want to talk a bit about the K-State homecoming parade. I stumbled upon this by accident (I was doing some shopping in the town center when I walked out and saw a parade going down Poyntz). I was pleasantly surprised.

I guess coming from a place like Modesto, CA, I have gotten used to parades being a thing of the past. When I was a kid, the 4th of July parade was a HUGE deal. I remember getting up at 8 am and sitting downtown with my family waiting for the parade to start. Over the past couple years, support for that parade back home has been dwindling, and they have barely made it work. What started off as a two hour or longer event is now only around an hour if we are lucky.

That's what I love about this place: it still has pride and tradition. Maybe it's because of the fact it's a smaller town, but I don't believe that. I think that it has to do with the people.

If you walked around town, you would see this. People were helping other people paint displays on the main street.

I came out with some good pictures. This parade had everything: shriners, Smokey the bear, floats, bears in cars, old time-y cars and even a cow statue.

Even in Kansas there are still segways. How disappointing.

It was definitely a fun time, and it lasted longer than my 4th of July parade back home! I guess bigger cities just don't have that Americana that smaller towns do. It's funny because American Graffiti, one of the best movies about americana, is based in Modesto, CA.

Agriculture Future of America Conference

Last weekend, I went to the AFA conference in Kansas City, MO. AFA stands for Agriculture Future of America. First off let me say, this was in my top two best weekends I had since I moved to Kansas, the other being when my sister came to visit. I hadn't left Manhattan since May, so it was refreshing to get out of town and see someplace new.

I carpooled with a few other K-State students over to our hotel in Kansas City. It's interesting how many people I've met here that are either from the west or east coasts. I'm beginning to think this is a trend.

This conference was awesome, one of the best I've ever been to, and I've been to a lot of them. Not only were the speakers and workshops great, but I met a lot of people from all over the country.

I think my favorite part of the conference was the time I got to spend with the other people from Kansas State. Before this conference, I don't even think I said hello to them, which was terrible. That weekend I must've met 8-10 people from Kansas State that I never talked to, and it was great getting to know them. Above is a picture of a few of us with Orion Samuelson, a broadcast journalist for RFD-TV.

I also enjoyed the speakers and workshops. Our first speaker was Captain Charlie Plumb, a navy combat pilot from the Top Gun Academy who was captured in Vietnam and kept in a Vietnamese prison camp for years. We also had a woman named Jan Hargrave who was a body language expert teach us about how to read people. She even taught us how to read romantic body language, which I will make sure to remember.

There was also a career fair, where I met a lot of great industry professionals for internships. I found out I was paired with a company called ICM, which I later found out was a biofuels company. At first, I thought I would have nothing to say to these people because I knew hardly anything about ethanol, but it turns out their internship they offered was right up my alley.

All in all, it was a great conference. I learned some great things, met some great people and was re-engerized to come back and put these skills I learned to good use. It's something I'm definitely looking forward to next year and may even try to become a national officer for the organization. We shall see.