Top Ten Placing in National Achievement Award Contest

We had a great time at the Farm Bureau Convention and ended up placing in the top 10 for the Achievement Award. We then had an interview on Monday morning with the judges who read our application. We were competing for a Dodge truck or the 4 runners-up won a Case Farm-All tractor. Anyway, we did not end up in the top five, but felt it was a great honor to rank in the top ten. We did receive a Toy Case Tractor and $500 gift certificate for Valvoline (oil). It was a great experience to meet people from all over the county. I talked to so many people and wish we could have gotten to know them a little better.

This is a picture of our poster with the star identifying us as a top ten contestant. The National YF&R Committee makes these posters to highlight all the participants from each of the three contests.

This is a picture of us standing on stage waiting for the announcement of the winners. The day before we had to stay for a rehearsal. This is a major production they put on, and they needed everyone to know exactly what they needed to do and where to stand on stage. They even have confetti come down when they announce the winners!

One of the highlights of the convention was hearing Colin Powell speak.

Monday night we ate at a very fancy restaurant. They had very good food, but we found out soon after we were seated that we were a little under dressed. The waitress came and politely asked Garrick to remove his hat. We were all a little embarrassed, and started looking around and noticing that most people were dressed more formally than we were. But soon another group came in and were seated at the table next to us, one of the men had a hat on. Staci turned and warned him that he should take his hat off, but he couldn't get it off before the waitress asked him to remove it. Jamison started calling Staci the hat Police, because she warned another guy on our way out of the restaurant.

Anyway, the food was delicious. Jamison had turtle soup and duck. I am not the brave, but had steak and shrimp, and a bite of Jamison's duck. Duck is very tasty!

For dessert we had the Banana Souffle (see picture above). It has butter, brown sugar, banana extract, and rum (hence the fire). It is quite the show as they make it right at your table. They drizzle that sauce over ice cream and bananas. Yummy!!