2Ogallala Commons 2010 Summer Intern Blog Group 2

DeLesa Perez Final Blog

2011-08-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

Mr. & Mrs Nick Chavez the ones in charge of Hart Days

Hart Days Cook Off Winners

With school starting within the next week and as we all continue to follow out paths. The summer has come to an end way sooner then we would have liked, but it has been a good one. With this summer being the third consecutive summer that I do this Ogallala Commons internship. At the beginning I didn’t think there was much more to learn. I knew most of the jobs that I would be taking care of but as the years have progressed so has my knowledge about my community and what we are all about. Advertising and public relations is the major that I have chosen to pursue so I knew a couple of my jobs would fit right up that alley. One of my first jobs for the summer was going to the elementary school and working in the library with the kids, helping them check out books, take test on the computer, and also read to them with having them read to me as well. This was a real great joy because I got to meet some of the little kids who I didn’t know. I would only go for a couple days out of the week but the couple of hours I was there was great. By the end of the month the kids were coming in giving me hugs and having some funny conversations. I also started working out of Hart City Hall which was great at first I was just going in and working off my lap top with getting Jamaica stuff together another project of mine and I was also running errands like picking up the mail and going to make the deposit at the bank. By the end of this internship I was answering the phones and taking the water payments from the community. By doing this I interacted more with the community and got to meet people that lived in the community and I didn’t know. Another project I worked on was flyers for the annual catholic church Jamaica I was in charge of designing them, getting them printed, and then making sure they were distributed throughout the surrounding communities including Dimmitt, Nazareth , Olton, and Plainview. Having to go in and ask for permission to hang the flyer was kind of scary for me but after doing this for two summers I was confident to go in and get almost thirty flyers up. On the day of the Jamaica I along with my mom volunteered to have a couple of games to keep the little kids entertained throughout some of the day. The games we ran were the ring toss, spin the wheel, and pick a pop, and let me tell you these sure did keep them entertained. It’s such a joy to see how happy they get when they win a prize. This day was counted towards the ten hours of community service that are required of us to complete throughout the internship. Next project on the list was Hart Days our community event that we have every year. As like before I was again in charge of the flyers and getting them out just like I did with the Jamaica posters. I also got in contact with a game trailer that came on the Saturday afternoon which was a big hit. Another thing I did was help my mom in the booth that sold the bracelets for the kids to get on the inflatables. We had a great crowd for Hart Days and watching everyone reunite was a great feeling. Another little project for me was getting to help the jr. high cheerleaders which was fun and exciting. I got to help them with posters and I also am still in the process of getting some locker tags finished for them. Last but not least I also created a Hart Facebook page that will be avalible to everyone and will contain information of the events going on along with anything requested.This internship has not gotten old each summer I have learned more about my community and have gained a lot more experience. I have opened many more doors for myself and have learned a lot about myself. I have more confidence and a better networking system because of Ogallala Commons. I am very grateful that I have had the chance to gain this experience and have an opportunity of a life time. My harvesting ceremony has yet to happen because of scheduling of meetings but I am scheduled to have it on September 13th at the city council monthly meeting.

(Trying to catch the pig at the rodeo)

Tia Hadley #8

2011-08-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that the summer is already over. It has gone by so fast. It was a great summer full of great of experiences. I learned so much and gained a lot of valuable skills that will help me in the future with my career. When I started this internship I got the question all the time on how my major, biochemistry, went along with this internship. At first I wasn't really sure, I just wanted the job mostly because it seemed like a great way to help my community and have a good experience to remember forever. Now I realize that my major has a lot to do with the internship. It gave me a great feel for my community and I gained so many great values and experiences that will help me in my future career and life. This was such an amazing summer. I was given three major projects to do over the course of my internship. The first one was to set up the farmers' market and run it every Friday morning. Setting it up was simple because we have had one set up for years now. All I really had to do was right a letter to some of the vendors and put it in the newspaper, make fliers to hang around businesses, advertise it on our tv channel and news sign in town, and make vendor applications and a set up a clear set of rules and regulations. Every Friday I would run the market from eight am to one in the afternoon. Usually I would run the High Plains Food Coop booth and keep an eye on business and help the other vendors with questions and problems. I had a great time running the market. I had so much fun with vendors. I loved talking with them and just having a good time. I really loved being apart of it. My second major project was to complete the disc golf course. This project was probably the biggest of all three. The holes and the tee pads were already set up but we needed to make signs for each hole and big signs for the beginning of the course. The first thing I did was to get all the signs for each of the holes. I had a local lady who owns her own engraving business to make the signs. They were red with white letters and had the hole number with the sponsors on them. Next step was the advertise the course. So I made brochures with maps, score cards and rules on them. We then sent them to local businesses so people could pick them up before they played the course. We also got a company to buy discs and sell them at their store. The next thing I did was to find a way to hang the signs on to the baskets. I went to the hardware store and decided to hang them up with sturdy but nice looking clips. We wanted something sturdy but not ugly so it wouldn't take away from the beauty of the signs. After all the signs were done I hung them all up and spray painted the tops of the baskets fluorescent orange. Finally I had the two maps and sponsor signs made for the beginning of the course. They were just completed a week ago. We are still waiting to get them put up but we are very pleased with how they turned out. The final to do was to create a facebook page for the disc golf course. It tool all summer but the disc golf course is complete. I'm so glad that it is done. My final project of the summer was to make a list of all the alumni form 1980 to 2010 who still live here or moved back here. That was hard but so much fun to see who lived here and learn when the graduated. My parents had to help me a lot with it because I didn't know most of the people like I thought I would. The next part of it was to make a list of all the new businesses and all the businesses with new owners or managers. Then I had to make a list of all their ages and compare it to all the owners of all the other businesses. Then I got the percentages of the ages of all owners. 50 percent were under 40 and the other 50 percent were over 40. The final part of the project was to make a list of all the farms in transition to different owners and ones who have young owners. This was really hard but thankfully I had Chris to help me out. We spent three hours in his office highlighting all the transition farms on a county map. When we were done most of the map was red. All these projects took most of my time but I did get to do some other fun stuff. I went to Denver for the HPFC and got to meet Greg. It was a lot of fun to meet another intern. For my harvesting ceremony I gave a speech about my experience as an intern to the Board of Education. I was pretty nervous but they were really nice and interested in what I had to say. They really loved what I had done and what the internship was all about. Then I was interviewed by Mary Holle for the newspaper and got an entire section in our newspaper. Everyone I see in town has been telling me that they loved the article about me in the paper and were really proud of me and excited to see where my career took me. It was great to have so much support from my community. My internship was really enjoyable. I had a ton of support and learned so much. I'm excited to go back to school but sad that the summer is over. My internship really made my summer lots of fun and full of experiences. I hope that if I can I will get the opportunity to do it again next summer. Thanks everyone who helped me and let me have this great experience.

Blog #7, Tia Hadley

2011-08-11T15:35:00.000-07:00

When I found out we were required to do community service for our internship I was excited. I have been doing comunity service ever since I can remember. It has been a huge part of my life. I read some interns response about the community service part and I learned that most of them were not excited about it and were nervous about it. But it didn't phase me at all. Plus I didn't think ten hours was such a big deal. It seemed a very small amount to me. I was able to get them all done in just a week.

For my community service hours I decided to volunteer up at the nursing home. My little sister had volunteered up there and said she loved doing it. So I went and talked to the director of activities, Marie Sis, she said they would love to have me help and she could set up times for me to come up.

On my first day I went there at ten in the morning and worked out with some of the residents. It was actually really fun. They all loved that I was there with them. I thought the workout would be really easy, but parts of it were actually kind of challenging even for me. I was only there for half and hour but I had a great time. The residents were so much fun! I couldn't wait until I got to go back and visit with them again.

The second trip I actually got to help with bingo. It is one of the residents favorite activities to do. I sat with one of the residents named Sarah and helped her with her card. She was so much fun and I quickly fell in love with her. That first day Sarah won almost every bingo game. She was so excited. I loved to see how excited she would get every time she got a bingo. The residents were so much fun to talk to and visit with. They loved to tell me about themselves and ask me questions all about my life. They were always so thankful and happy that I was up there. I stayed for a couple more hours and visited with other residents and played some dominoes and card games with them. Unfortunately I never won one game of dominoes!! They always beat me.

The next couple of days I played bingo and dominoes and cards with all the residents. One day I got to call out the numbers for bingo. Doesnt sound like such a big deal but the residents are very picky when it comes to stuff like that. It was great when we were done and all the residents said I was such a good caller and they loved having me here. That was such a great feeling to have. They were so appreciative of me being there and spending my time with them. It made me feel good that they appreciated me and I was spending my time doing something for my community and helping others.

On wednesdays the have church for teh catholic residents. It was a really busy day for the activities director so she had me lead all the prayers and be the lector during mass. I wasn't nervous because I read in church all the time. But I was nervous about leading the rosary because I have prayed it alot but I have never led it before. But the residents were really accepting and patient with me. I was excited because I got to see my grandma for the first time since I started volunteering up at the nursing home. She was so excited to see me and that made me really happy. After mass was over all the residents said I had done such a great job leading prayers and reading in mass. My grandma said I did wonderful and she was very proud of me. Her saying that made me so happy and proud. She couldn't stop telling all the other residents I was her granddaughter and telling them all about it me. It was even more special because I am her step granddaughter and my parents have only been married for a couple years. It felt gret that she thought of me as her own granddaughter and that she was so proud of me. She was so excited that I was coming up there that she actually came out and visited with me and played some games the next day. Which is a great thing for her because she usually doesn't do too much of the activities. I was glad to see her get out of her room and visit with me and the other residents. The next day I even saw her at bingo! I was so excited. She looked like she was having a great time with all the other residents. After bingo I got to visit with her more and play some bingo with her and other residents. We had such a great time.

My last time was such a fun but sad day. I had a great time with the residents though. I had so much fun with them that I decided I would go up there when I could just to visit and hang out with the residents.

My experience with the commuinty service part of my internship was very positive. It taught me so much. It was a very valuable experience and I will never forget it. I'm really glad that this was a requirement of the internship.

Larissa Gardner--Final Post

2011-08-08T17:32:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

The 2011 Ogallala Commons Internship was very rewarding. I had the opportunity to produce a full-scale exhibit for the Holy Family Parish, to produce an updated copy of the Holy Family Cemetery’s map and a publication copy of their listings (as well as to track down the status of the Designation for an Historical Marker.) In addition, I worked to digitize the Pioneer Pastors exhibit so it can be made into panels with a computer program. The Internship also required some tasks of its own: a walking tour of a local community, volunteer hours, a semi-weekly blog, and a Harvest Ceremony in which the intern presents all their hard work to the community. The inclusion of these tasks helps to round out the experience and to ensure that interns are thinking about their community rather than just about having a summer job.

A Woman’s Touch was a way of bringing to life the seventy-five years of Benedictine spirit in the Nazareth school and community, and honoring those Sisters from St. Scholastica Monastery in Ft. Smith, Arkansas who brought the ideals of faith, hard work, and education with them. Many of the Sisters returned to Nazareth over and over again after falling in love with this small farming community. So great was their influence, that Nazareth saw girls from their midst leave to join the Sisters in St. Scholastica. At the beginning of the summer I thought that I would be researching and reporting in the form of panels and a presentation much as I did for the Rodeo last summer, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the planned exhibit was so much more than that! People from Nazareth and as far away as California who used to live in Nazareth sent stories and memorabilia for the production.

A Woman's Touch Banner

Holy Family Cemetery has been cataloged more than once but over the years, the several groups who have worked on the project have each made their impression on the data. Last year and this year I worked on getting a cohesive data set together in order to present the work at the New Jerusalem Oratory building soon to be erected at the Cemetery. Without the work of the Catholic Daughters on the Cemetery Book, Ogallala Interns on the digital map and the listing, I would not have been able to come up with my unified vision this summer. I walked the cemetery and ensured that each plot and stone was where it was listed. I found that over time, several groups had numbered the list, which made for a few discrepancies. I found I had three sources: the map, the list, and the book. The map and the list were digital and therefore fairly easy to adjust, so I made sure they agreed and were available for the next updated publication of the Cemetery Book. I also made sure that the map was numbered in such a way that made it easy to read for someone just looking at it for the first time.

Father Ken Keller on the New Jerusalem Site

The Pioneer Pastors exhibit was created last summer by Ogallala Interns and produced on presentation boards, but as such they are subject to wear and tear. I was asked to take all the information and put it into the computer so that the project can be made over into exhibit boards like the Rodeo and the Sisters’ projects. I am in the process now of digitizing them. Each Pastor had his own biography and notes along with pictures and “bigger picture” items which tied in general United States History of the time for reference. Each item is removed one at a time and scanned into the computer. Each pastor also has his own write-up in an accompanying Word document so that all the information is available to whoever makes up the exhibit in the computer.

Father Joseph Reisdorff: Pioneer Priest

The walking tour of Amarillo was quite nice. I rarely walk in downtown, but when I go down there, I am always struck by the variety of buildings and the neon at night. It was a revelation to look inside some of the buildings like the Paramount Theater and see what changes had happened on the inside. The re-purposing of these buildings has helped to bring prosperity to downtown Amarillo. The blogging helped me to review the week’s work and put it into a well-ordered report for my supervisors and those of the community who wished to follow the development of the exhibit. Community service opportunities were a little difficult to work out, but I finally found somewhere that I could go work easily around my schedule, the High Plains Food Bank. Overall it was a grand summer and one which I will take with me when I continue my career in Public History.

Acapulco Restaurant in Neon

Tia Hadley #6

2011-08-08T15:58:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind the other interns. While most of them are done with their internships I am still working on mine. I've had great time this summer being an intern. I've had so many great opprotunities to help my community and meet new people. In the end of July I went with my sponsor, Chris Sramek, to Denver to help with the High Plains Food Coop. It was so much fun to get to help out and see all the people that are involved. I also got to meet Greg, the intern from Denver. It was awesome to get to meet a fellow intern and share our experiences and ideas. He had some great ideas on how to bring small town values and ideas to a big city. I learned that so many people want organic food and really think it is a great thing in the city. Out here most of us take having fresh and organic food for granted because it is so easy to come by, but to them it is a treasure. It really opened my eyes to other people's thinking. I learned a lot in just a few hours while working in Denver. I got to help sort all the food into their proper sections to be delivered. It was cool to see how much stuff we had and how much people had bought. I had no idea so many people loved farm fresh goods. It really is a lucky thing for us small town people who get it all day every day. It gave me a new appreciation for where I lived and the things I have. We worked in this huge warehouse and put a sign out front so the volunteers knew where we were. The great thing was to see all the locals come in and ask about us and how wonderful they thought it was. We got so many new volunteers and some new customers too. It is so great to see how much the Food Coop is growing and blossoming in to something really big. I'm hoping that it keeps getting spread and new people keep joining and helping. It helps so many local farmers be able to keep their farms open and their businesses running. And it gives a place for young entrepaneurs to sell their goods and get started on their future businesses. We have so many young kids who are interested in this type of business and its awesome that they can start to be apart of it now and continue to learn and get new ideas for their own businesses.

I'm super excited because the disc golf course is almost complete! We just have the map to put up at hte beginning and we are done. There is going to be a tournament in September and I am hoping it goes well enought that this can become a thing we do all the time. I was suprised by how many people actually use it. At first I didn't think too many people would, but I have never been happier to be wrong. Brown's True Value sold out almost immediatly of discs and had to order more! It's so great to go around the lake and see it and see people playing it and enjoying it.

I'm also glad to say that I have almost comlpeted all the alumni project. All I have to finish is the farm transiition part with Chris and it will be complete. I think its ok to say that this was one of the hardest parts of my internship. But it was super fun to see all the alumni who live here and all the businesses we have change and grow. I learned that we have about 80 total businesses! In atown of roughly 1200 people I think that it is great, especially since most of them are locally owned and opperated.

Community Service Blog

2011-08-03T11:43:00.001-07:00

(Spin The Wheel Game)

(Lolipop Game)

So my contribution for community service this year is I had the Ring Toss which is about twelve cokes set out and we give the kids three rings for a dollar and when they ring a coke they get to keep the coke. Its so funny to see how excited they get to take home a 2-liter coke. Another game I set up was the Pick- a-Pop which is a paper tree with lollipops sticking out and when you pull a lollipop if the end of the stick has a color on it then you win a prize in the box that has that color attached to it. Last but not least I had one more game set up and this one is spin the wheel. The point of this game is for the child to come up and spin the wheel and when the wheel stops the color it lands on is the box that the kids get to pick from. The prizes we have are usually donated from people in the community of some will donate money and I along with my mom will go out and buy the different prizes needed. It is a lot of fun to see the kids excited over small prizes. Me and my mom have done the games for a few years now and it is so rewarding to do this because not only are we getting the joy of keeping the little ones entertained throughout the day but we are giving back to our church which accounts for so much more. Over the years we have made about three hundred dollars each year that goes all back to the church since everything we use and prizes we bought are donated. I finished up the rest of my community service over this past weekend at hart days. On Saturday morning I got up early to go to the fire dept. to make sure everything was set up and ready to go. I went and set up the cook-off signs and then after the parade I made my way to the bracelet booth where my mom and I sold the bracelets for the inflatable rides we had along with a game trailer and the laser tag that night. It was a cost of 10 dollars to participate in each of these events throughout the day. So all we would do is charge the 10 dollars and then make put the bracelet on the child. This was a fun job because well we were in a little booth so we did not have to sit in the hot sun. Another is that we get to talk and have conversations with the people who come to the booth to buy the bracelets. Some of these people are my mom’s classmates so then I get to meet them, and sometimes they are friends of the family, or people who used to live in the community that just sit and tell us their stories about when they lived in hart. All together I had very rewarding community service time giving back to my hometown.
(Booth where the Bracelets were sold)

Final Post

2011-08-02T10:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can not believe that is already time for me to be saying farewell. Time, my gosh, where did the time go? Well one thing I can say for sure is this summer has been absolutely outstanding. I believe I have received a true blessing getting to be an Ogallala Intern, especially in my home town, in which I adore. I am also lucky to work with three of the best ladies, a girl could ask for. Not only where they my bosses-coworkers, they became some of my best friends. I will start off with Christy, this town is so very blessed to have Christy. I believe so much of the work she does goes undetected, however, after working in this office I know exactly how much work and dedication she puts forth. Christy and I got to know each other pretty good last year, but this year brought us so much closer. On to Mrs. Miles, oh not enough words can express how wonderful this lady is. Mrs. Miles has been in my life for numerous years, and she is such a very talented person. When it comes to getting stuff done, there is no doubt that Mrs. Miles is the lady for the task. The two of these ladies are so very beneficial not only to this office, but to the entire community. They sure keep things running smoothly. Lastly, I am so very fortunate to have Katy in here this year. She is so talented, and doesn't even know it, and she has such a bright future. Katy and I became really good friends throughout our adventures, and she is such a trooper to put up with me this summer.

One of the main task that was given to Katy and I this summer was to renovate The Star Theater, to a 1950's Diner, that was set by the theater board. This was fun, however, to say the least it was very challenging. Neither one of us knew anything about painting, or taping or anything of that nature. So we spent several hours taping only to realize that when we peeled the tape off, it had bled on the surface, and it would peeled our paint of as we went. So we went back to the lumber yard, and they gave us different tape that made a world of difference, thankfully. However, we also had problems getting our paint to dry. We did everything from painting one wall completely black, to hanging posters of ranging from James Dean to Marilyn Monroe, to taking doors off the hinges and remounting them, to totally renovation the place. Katy and I spent a lot of time doubting ourselves, but I think in the end it kinda came together. It is certainly different to say the least. It tested our patience, but all-in-all, it was a great learning adventure.

The Biking Across Kansas was another event that we a lot of our time participating in. We set up a lemonade stand and were there to met and greet several of the bikers as they came to check in. It was so neat to see people of all ages, shapes, and sizes competing. Each and every one of them were so grateful for everything that we had done for them. Our office also helped with the 4 o'clock in the morning breakfast. The 4-H Livestock Club served it, and they had amazing food. It was fun to see and hear stories from the bikers about the night. It's crazy to think that our towns population nearly doubled over one night.

I was also pretty active with our summer recreation programs. One night I helped with the registration for the T-Ball players. It was so cute to see them play, and get a concept of the game. However, most of my time went to the summer softball league. I had a lot of fun keeping score for this. We had eight teams, and it was a good way from me to get socially active again. I seen people that I haven't got to see since high school, so like I said it was fun. I also, helped with our all day tournament. It started at 9 in the morning, and the last game was played at midnight.

Katy worked a lot the Rural Kansas Website, I assisted her with it just a little bit. I did take several pictures, that she used on it, so I felt a little bit beneficial. Also, after every weekend, I did the deposits for the theater. We ran a lot of errands for the office, and completed other odd and in tasks that needed to be done.

We also we asked to attend the board meetings, and this was very interesting to me because it opened my eyes even more to how much this office does. It made me realize how active these girls that work in here are. Something that I learned about, that interested me was this Rural Opportunity Zone. 50 counties in Kansas have made two incentives to move back to western Kansas. Since this is where home is for me it really sparked interest. The two incentives include the income tax incentive and the student loan repayment incentive. The income tax one is the only one that applies to me, and it states that if you return to Kansas after 5 years of out-of-state and establish residency in one of these 50 counties that you can receive a tax credit against Kansas income tax for up to five consecutive years.

To wind all of this up, I am so very blessed to once again get this opportunity to work in the Greeley County Development Center. I was very fortunate to be surrounded by wonderful ladies, and I learned so very much from my experience here. So I would like to say a great big THANK YOU, to Ogallala Commons, along with the Greeley County Development!!

DeLesa Perez Blog #7

2011-08-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

Our New Miss Hart With Last Years

As I draw closer to the end of my internship I seem to get busier as one of my bigger projects draws closer as well. On Sunday July 24 I accomplished my first Oral History Interview, I have to say I was a bit nervous at first but after I started to listen I calmed down and really enjoy it. I got to interview Neoma Williams she is the lady in charge of our local newspaper it was interesting to learn the ways she would print papers quite a few years ago to the way the paper is printed now. I also was able to join Mrs. Felice Acker again with the nutrition reading program and enjoyed playing with the kids and watching them learn about cows. Throughout the rest of the week I was busy working on last minute posters and signs and making sure everything was taken care of Thursday July 28th was the kick off of Hart Days 2011 with the Miss Hart Pageant we decorated on Thursday morning and I ran to pick up the t-shirts I got to design for the girls. We had great entertainment from a young little girl singer out of Lubbock and she was awesome. Friday we had our Rodeo and I got to help keep times and make sure the kids had on their bracelets to participate in the events. The weekend was great and I got to have a lot of interaction with several people to make sure I was getting things done the right way.

Set Up for the Pageant

DeLesa Perez Blog #6

2011-08-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

(Hart Days Poster 2011)
This week seemed to be a bit more of a sit down get work done type of week I have been occupied with my online summer classes that I am taking so I have not had much time this week to do much. I did get to attend the session at WTAMU enterprise center on Tuesday which was very interesting to see how they help the businesses get up on their feet. I also went to Herford for finish printing the Hart Days Posters and then got to attend the News Channel 10 Broadcast in Dimmitt TX that evening. It was nice to see Castro County come together and have an evening full of fun and laughter along with music, food and games. Throughout the rest of the week I placed the order for the Miss Hart T-Shirts I designed and spread the news of hart days to the surrounding communities like Dimmitt, Nazareth, Plainview, and Olton. I also attended a Hart Days Meeting so that we could discuss and make sure everything was planned and ready for next weekend. I also set up my first Oral History Interview for Sunday July 24th This week was pretty much a preparation week to get ready and organized for the last two weeks of my summer internship.

(Miss Hart T-Shirt Design)

DeLesa Perez Blog #5

2011-08-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

(Hart Facebook Page Picture)

I hope everyone is having a successful summer as I have as well and fun and exciting. I have learned a lot of new things and have met quite a few more people. Throughout this fifth week of my internship I really layed back this week I was not quite as busy as I had been I worked at city hall answering the telephones receiving water bill payments and running to the post office and back for sue. I have really enjoyed working at city hall because I have learned more about my community and the people that live here. I finished the final layout of the Hart Days posters I designed and will get them printed and distributed next week. I was able to attend and help the Jr. High Cheerleaders at their practice and made them some ribbon ties for their hair. I also set up a City of Hart facebook page so that we could use it as a way to help inform the people in the community and the people who used to be a part of the community of what is going on and maybe some significant events and Birthdays even we hope to grow the facebook page and keep it updated as much as possible. We also had a hart days meeting to see where we stood with the progress and to finalize what else needs to get done with only two full weeks left before the big weekend celebration.

Hairbows for the Cheerleaders

Larissa Gardner Blog 7 (Volunteerism)

2011-07-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Everything this summer has seemed to fly by in a whirl. I had everything planned out at the beginning of the summer and as usual, the plans have changed over and over again. The weekend before orientation I met some people at the Mariposa property outside Amarillo. I had planned to work with them for my volunteer assignment, primarily feeding their animals and watering their garden in the mornings, but when I tried to re-connect with them to set up the specifics, I was unable to reach them.

I thought about what I would do as an alternate assignment and got together with another Ogallala intern Elisa Elizando, who works in Amarillo and we went early on a Saturday morning with Brandi, my daughter to try and volunteer at the High Plains Food Bank. But since we weren't a pre-scheduled group there was nothing for us to do. We ran into little roadblocks along the way as we tried to find a productive way to spend our Saturday but eventually we called the road trip. Everything seemed to be bad timing.

High Plains Food Bank in Amarillo

Not the one to give up, I contacted the Food Bank again this week and began my volunteer hours with them. I knew from volunteering last year that the Food Bank has a Community Garden, but I was unaware of the extent of their reach across the Panhandle. I hit upon this idea as I was working on labels. Some of the other volunteers and I were handwriting donation types on sticky labels--things like "Assorted Meats 15 Pounds" and "Assorted Eggs-15 Dozen, 27 pounds."

I asked about who could be donating such large amounts of food and found that the High Plains Food Bank receives donations from Walmart, United, Affiliated Foods and other grocers when they have over-ordered for inventory. They had a large freezer complex in the back of the warehouse in which they keep their cold goods until they are ready to be delivered. The Food Bank does not really deliver to individuals; they deliver to places like Churches and community organizations, who in turn give to the needy in their various areas throughout the Panhandle. Each group is autonomous and decides how to distribute their food. They even deliver to Tri-County Foods in Quitique in the Hope Community Center. (We ate lunch there on our Orientation bus tour.)

Quitique sign (From their website.)

Shepherding Local Resources or contributing to Local Foods, usually calls to mind an image of community gardens and farmers' markets but the High Plains Food Bank also fits into this group. The Food Bank takes local resources in the form of food donations, separates them into categories according to type (canned goods, boxed prepared items, frozen foods, etc) and then trucks the donations all over the Panhandle to help meet the needs of those less fortunate. Although these local foods are not in the form we would think of, the Food Bank allows food to get from those who have excess to those who really need it.

Tia Hadley #5

2011-07-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

This past few weeks have been super busy for me. Don't get me wrong I love being busy. I finally got all the signs for the disc golf course hung up and it looks great. We had a mishap though. The signs for nine and ten were switched and confused some of the people playing the course because it was right on the map but wrong on the actual course. We got it fixed though so no harm done. Glad it was an easy fix. I got a sample of what the big map for the beginning of the course will look like and they look awesome. Once we get some details fixed they will be done and we get them put up. We found someone who needs community service hours, to build and put up the posts for the maps and the list of sponsors. I can't wait to see what the course is going to look like when it is all done. I made the mistake when I was first given the project of thinking that it would be easy and I could get it done soon. I had no idea it would take almost my entire internship to complete. It turned out to be a way bigger project than I thought, but it was such a fun and interesting project to do. And I'm really proud of what I have completed.

The second biggest project I was given was to set up the Farmers' Market. This one I knew would only take a week or two to set up but I knew it would last the entire summer, even longer than my internship. I work the food coop stand every Friday from eight to one. It is a lot of work but it is still a ton of fun. I'm so glad that it has been going so good every week. We keep getting new vendors every week and the ones that have been here since the beginning are still here. Most of our vendors sell out of all their goods in just a couple hours.

I was unexpectedly gone for almost a week because of a family emergency. My third biggest project was unfortunately put on hold for awhile. But I have since caught up and am down with all the alumni that graduated from Atwood and live in Rawlins County now. I am almost done with the business part. I have to record all the businesses that are new or have new owners or mangers and businesses we have lost. It is hard because there a lot of tiny businesses run from someones home that I don't know about. Most of them are babysitting businesses and I don't know them so I need to figure that out. But the hardest part of the project is to document all the farms that are in transition. Chris promised to help me with that one, but we both know it is going to be difficult. But I really like this project. It is fun to see how many people live who are alumni and how many businesses we have that are new or changing. I have been really busy but I love it and I am kinda sad that it is almost over.

DeLesa Perez Blog 5&6

2011-07-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

My Hart Days Poster :) I had a couple more picture but I can not seem to get them uploaded from my phone.

I am not quite sure that I am able to do this but the reason is because last Friday, I took off at the last minute on Friday morning on a mini vacation with what I call my second family. I had a wonderful weekend and came back on Monday. Between these last two weeks I have been helping more within the city hall answering the telephones, taking the water bills, picking up the mail, and running errands throughout the town. I have enjoyed getting to know more and communicate more with the community. I have finally finished the Hart Days poster which I have also gone through the surrounding towns to hang up these posters so that our community can get a mixture of people to come and enjoy the event with us. I have also contacted the game trailer and they will also be joining our hart day’s events. I have also continued to help the Jr. High Cheerleaders and made some hair ribbons for them to use for hart days, along with helping design a t-shirt for the pageant and cheerleader girls that they will wear the day of the pageant. Getting closer to the end of my internship I have realized that I have learned a lot more and become a lot more involved then in the past. On Tuesday I attended the WTAMU enterprise tour and I really enjoyed watch and learning on how they work together and with people from the community to help them run their business better. Our Hart Days is coming up next weekend so I will be busy with that along with finishing up my community service hours and I also have an Oral History interview set up on Sunday with the lady who has taken care of our community newspaper.Last but not least I have set up an official facebook page for the City of Hart it needs a little work but slowly I am progressing at getting everything finished

Tia Hadley #4

2011-07-16T13:31:00.001-07:00

I can't believe how fast my first internship has flown by! I've been so busy with two main projects that time has just passed me by. This week of my internship was during the fourth of July. When I first interviewed for the internship I was told of all the activities I would be helping with on the fourth. I was so excited for that part of my internship. We had so many fun events to do on the fourth and couldn't wait to be apart of them. We had bike races, lake Atwood ten mile race, sand volleyball competition, a horse shoe competition and train rides for the kids, all finishing off with a great fireworks show at dusk. Unfortunately I was unable to help with any of the events because that day was the day of my sister's wedding and I was her maid of honor. I was sad I was unable to help but I planned on doing as much as I could before the fourth to get everything ready for the day of fun. Chris and I really wanted the signs for each hole on the disc golf course to be up by the fourth. So, the few days before Monday I worked really hard to get all the signs put up on all of the eighteen holes. I went to True Value our hardware store to find something to hang the signs to the baskets. After I got some help from one of the employees I found some clips that I thought were sturdy and would look really nice in contrast to the gorgeous red and white signs we had. That night Chris and I went out to the lake to put the first sign on the hole and check out how it looked. I was so excited to see all my hard work pay off. But sadly the clips we had gotten were not big enough to fit on the basket. We were both bummed. So the next day I went back to the hardware store and different clips that were bigger and some fluorescent orange spray paint to paint the tops of the baskets to make them stand out better. Then Friday after I worked the farmers' market Chris's niece and her friend came to help me hang up all the signs and spray paint the tops of the baskets. It took us over two hours to hang up all the signs and spray paint all the holes. After we were done we were really tired but happy that all the signs were up and looked really good. The rest of the week I worked on getting a big sign with a map of the course to put at the beginning of the course. It was a busy week but I had a lot of fun with it.

Larissa Gardner--Blog 6

2011-07-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

Hello,

This week I have been working on getting all the information from "A Woman's Touch" into a format which can be used for re-exhibition and publication. The goal is to get both the "Pioneer Pastors'" exhibit which was made by Ogallala Interns last year as well as this years Sisters' exhibit into a publication which can then either be sold or given by donation to members of the community and to tourists during such events as the German Fest.

Handcrafts Table

Exhibits must be fluid. They need to be organized and re-organized into different formats: display, storage, and publication. This process is repeated each time the exhibit travels, making it important to know all the pieces as well as the reasons for their placement. There were seven sets of displays like the one above down the middle aisle of the Holy Family Church. After the strike, I went through the baskets and boxes and put them back into the order I had them in the exhibit so they could quickly be set up in the same order in the Labor Day exhibition.

Takeaway Front Page

Part of the exhibit was a "takeaway" to explain the exhibit briefly and to take care of small things which had been left out such as unidentified pictures, etc. This was my starting point for the publication. Father Ken felt this would be a good introduction. Getting everything into the new format will be an interesting challenge but one which I hope to package for the editing process within the next week.

Larissa

Shancee Howell, Blog 7

2011-07-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

Hello again,

It seems like it has been awhile since I have blogged, well turns out it sure has. Some how or another, time just continuously seems to fly. This last week consisted of a lot of errand running. However, I helped Katy gather some information on the museum for the Get Rural Kansas website. I enjoyed that experience, and learning more about our community, and the attributes that we have.

I helped recreation hang posters for Dan Dan the Magic man. He was here Saturday, July 9, and had live animals, comedy and magic, as well as asking for audience participation. This event was held at the CYAT center.

Also, we continued our work on the theater. I believe we are gaining ground, but still seems like we have a ways to go. Above the concession stand there was a plain black board, and Katy and I painted it to look like a film strip. It seems to brighten the theater up. There was also an old wooden phone book desk, and we renovated it to be black and turquoise.

Larissa Gardner--Blog 5

2011-07-09T18:06:00.000-07:00

Hello,

"A Woman's Touch" opened today, and all week I have been finalizing details. Father Ken and my daughters Kiri and Brandi, as well as several members of the Church helped me execute the massive project. We had five poster panels, one 6 x 8 foot hanging poster, a "wicker nun" on a dress form, a television playing the Nun's honorary Mass from 1994, and a 79 item display!

The Honor Tree

Sister Terese of St. Scholastica Monastery suggested the tree design. Each rectangle shows a single Sister who served in Nazareth or who came from Nazareth and went to St. Scholastica. The mounting was designed to resemble a pull-down map from a chalkboard. The Wicker Nun wears a scapular (a sideless garment), a cape, a shoulderette, and a veil.

The Wicker Nun

I learned a lot about networking this week. The background on the mounted poster panels was very pixelated and blurry and I didn't know how to fix it. Everyone I knew was out of town, and WT was closed for the Fourth. I conceded defeat and Father Ken told me about Chris Hays who is almost done with his Masters in Graphic Design. I called everyone I knew, but not everyone Father Ken knew.

A similar problem with the Tree poster resulted in another call. His suggestions worked wonderfully. I had hit the end of my creativity. I had done everything I knew how to do, but I hadn't done all Father Ken knew how to do. Networking is more than teamwork. It is relying on not only the skills of your team mates, but their contacts as well. Thank you Father Ken for all your help and your ideas!

Larissa

Heather Mitchell, Blog 5

2011-07-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hey my follow interns and others,

I really cannot believe how fast time is going by, it is already the 5^th week of our internships.

This past week, on Tuesday I had a meeting with Mary and Reba about our work plan from what we got done to what we have not done yet. It was very interesting and surprising to see all we have got done so far. At this meeting with Mary and Reba we discussed many ideas of thing we need and want to get done, as we were talking we found out that we had already been working on many of the ideas we came up with. We have started asset mapping, were we are learning many things about the people in Harding County, which I truly love learning about. I look forward to doing more asset mapping.

In the past weeks we have been to many meetings one of the many meetings we have been to was with the Roy Council Meeting and the meeting with the NERPO.

We are now starting to make plans about what to do for our 10 hours community service and let me tell you we got some great ideas going. We also have big plans coming up on the 19^th of July; we are going to attend the Youth Entrepreneurs Tour and workshop in Amarillo, which is one thing I am very excited to go to.

One thing I really cannot wait to get started with and to finish is all the interviews that I will be doing from now until the end of this internship. The reason I am so existed about this is I cannot wait for people to read and hear about all the history of the great people that are in our amazing county.

I leave this for you; “a community makes a person, but for me it been my county that has make me the great person that I have become.” Thank you.

Heather Mitchell

Heather Mitchell, Blog 4

2011-07-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

Hello my people,

This past week has been a very busy week for our Community Interns. We had two different meetings that Mary, Daniela, Reba and I had to get ready for. The two meetings we were going to be getting ready for were on the same day at the Mosquero High School. The four of us were going to be the one who would be setting up, and severing the group. Mary, Daniela and Reba set it up tables and ect… on Monday and Tuesday. I was unable to help them on those two days. On Wednesday which was the day of the meeting, we met at 8:00 a.m. so that we could start getting the lunch ready for the people who would be attending the meetings. We were very fortunately to have volunteers who came to help us get ready for lunch. For lunch we made cheeseburgers and green chili cheeseburger, they were delicious. We also had a lot of different deserts that the people from the town volunteered to make. After lunch Reba, Adam Mitchell (a student from Mosquero High School) and I give a tour of the village of Mosquero, we were given 15 minutes to give the tour. When the tour was done Reba and I were able to attend the last part the meetings. On Thursday Danie
la, Mary and I returned to the meeting area to finish cleaning the rooms we used for the meetings. I am always surprised at how long it can take to set up tables and made everything look so nice, then within minutes we take it all down. Over all it was a very good week.

I would like to mention that we had food left over from the meeting and we took it to the family in Roy who just lost a family member.

Hope very one has a safe and wonderful 4^th of July!!

By: Heather Mitchell

DeLesa Perez Blog #4

2011-07-08T11:37:00.000-07:00

(A Couple of the Postcards I did this week)

On this fifth week of my internship I was mainly catching up and getting myself organized, since I was gone a whole week. I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July mine was ok not the best. On Tuesday I went straight to work with going to help with the jr. high cheerleaders at their practice. Since summer school is over here I will be going to help the cheerleaders about twice a week to stay involved with the kids. I also got to attend the Nutrition reading program held by Mrs. Felice Acker at the Dimmitt library and with Liz. I had a lot of fun working with the kids and listening to all the questions and comments they had about cows. The rest of the week I have been busy working on the Hart Days Flyer, Sending out reminders for the Hart Days meetings, and I will also be helping organize the Miss Hart Pageant. I have created a face book page for the girls to keep them up to date and in touch with each other. We will also have a meeting this afternoon for the girls that want to participate. Last but not least I cannot forget our city wide garage sale will be this weekend so I have helped sue get the maps ready and out for people to pick them up in the morning. The map contains all the houses that will be having garage sales.

(The poster I made for our city wide garage Sale)

DeLesa Perez Blog #3

2011-07-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

The Consumer Confidence Reports

While I have been out of touch this past week while I was on vacation in Colorado which was amazing. The week before I left I was not able to post a blog so here it is. I was and have been busy and am enjoying this internship more than ever. The first month I enjoyed working at the elementary school with the summer school program. I would open up the library to the kids so that they could come in and check out books to read and I also had a few of the third graders come in and read to me and then I would read the book right back.

During this time I have also helped out my supervisor Sue Hawkins at the Hart city hall. I have sent out notifications and my last big project. I had to go out and pick up the Consumer confidence reports. There was about three hundred that I had to staple, stamp, and put a city label on and then the address labels, this took all day.
(Some of the kids reading in the library)
A Little more information that I wanted to add in is that our Annual Church Jamaica which was one of my big projects went great. We had a great turn out as far as people. I was in charge of three games, the ring toss, spinning the wheel, and pick a pop and altogether along with the help of my sister and mom we raised about 400 dollars. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures because I left my camera at home and even if I would have taken it. I was way too busy trying to keep up with all the little kids I would not have had time.

Just a taste of the tickets I had to Seperate for the Jamaica

Larissa Gardner-Post 4

2011-07-01T11:19:00.001-07:00

Hello,

A Woman's Touch has given me the opportunity to get to know the Sisters and I very much appreciate the opportunity. They had a wonderful effect on the community and they are still missed to this day. Many people have turned in Sister Sagas. These vignettes give great insight into the impression the teachers made on their students.

Sister Adrian Wewers

Sister Adrian Wewers was very fond of sports and reportedly "prayed more than one team into the State Tournament." She would often disagree with the calls referees made by shouting, "Santa Maria did you not SEE that?" She also made an impression on her students by taking dancing lessons with them. This gave the opportunity for the students to see humility in her willingness to learn.

Sisters with their Students at Mass

During Mass the teachers often sat with their students. Their role in the community went beyond school hours. Even the fact that they went about their business or walking to and from school in their habits reminded those who saw them of their commitment to God, the Church, and the community. It's important to do the history of the Sisters of Nazareth because we want them to always be remembered. It allows people like me, who did not grow up in this remarkable community to get to know women who were so important to its heart and soul.

Larissa

Tia Hadley #3

2011-06-29T15:47:00.001-07:00

The first few weeks of my internship have been full of fun things. I have been really busy working with my sponsor Chris Sramek on two of the projects he has set up for me to do this summer. The two projects are the disc golf course and the farmers' market. The disc golf course has a been a fun experience to work on. I've got to work with lots of different people on the project and I'm excited to see the final results. It turned out to be a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. Friday was our first farmers' market. It started at eight and ended at one. We had a really good turn out for our first time and for the new location. I have learned so much more about my community in these past three weeks. I got to meet with Leon from Home Town Prosperity and he gave me a really interesting project for the summer. I need to look up alumni from 1980 to 2010 and see how many stayed here and how many ahve come back to live here. Also I need to catalog all the new business in the community and all the businesses with new ownership or have been revamped. Then the hardest part of the project is to catalog all the farms that are in transission to new owners. That one I am really nervous about. But I am really excited to see all the alumni who stayed or even returned to Atwood. I was suprised when I went on the explore your community project when I realized that we had over 60 businesses!! I am excited to learn about all the new ones and meet all the new owners or managers. A lot of the new owners are younger and help bring back young alumni because they help bring intrest into living in Atwood. The youth our more important than I ever believed before. Their input is extremely important and these three weeks have showed me that I do have voice nad though I am very young I can have a huge impact on my community. These three weeks have given me tons of business experience and a lot more confindence in myself to tell my ideas and know I can help my community with tiny things that I do every day. I have almost completed the disc golf course project and am excited to start another one. I get to go the Denver county fair and help at a booth there. I also get to meet their intern, Greg. I am really excited to meet another intern and see what he has been doing and share our experiences as interns. It's really exciting because he is from an urban community and he is trying to promote farming in his community and I really want to know how that is going for him and hopefully get some ideas from him. This week I also get to start my community service hours. I can not wait for the rest of the fun stuff I get to do.

blog 2 Heather Mitchell

2011-06-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

You ask us to go and walk around our town to look at what make our town what it is and see the things that we never really see. I did this on the 15th of June with Reba. Reba and I went to Mosquero first. I do not live in Mosquero, Mosquero is one of the towns that is in my county and that is where Reba lives. Reba and I decided to walk together to see if we both saw the same thing. We then went to Roy to walk in the town which I live in. Roy and Mosquero are 19 miles apart.
I have walked this town so many times, as you can imagine since I have lived in this little town all my life. As we were walking, the memories started coming back to me of all the things I did at different place and different times. My family and my friends have told me many stories of things that had happen in this town. There are so many things in our town that make it so wonderful. I would have to say though; the thing that makes Harding County so wonderful would have to be the people who live here. The people here are always ready to help out which make Harding County a wonderful place to live.
If I would have wrote about my walk today I would have told you about what I felt and not what I saw. I had been gone for a week on a 4H trip, I had lots of fun and love meeting lots of news friends, but I started to miss my home town a lot. We had one more day before we were to go home, that night as we were getting ready to go out to eat we got a phone call with some bad news; a guy from our town had died in a terrible explosion. The next night as we were driving into town I could just tell that something bad had happen, it just felt so sad. Today, the day after we got home, I went to town and everyone seemed so sad, people were crying and hugging each other and trying to make sense of what happen and why. The whole town seems to have a cloud over it. What I felt was a lot of sadness, but I also felt a lot of love. People were worried about the family who had just lost their loved one and they were worried about each other. I felt like I belonged to one great big family.
You see what makes our two towns so great are the people in it. We all know one another and we care about each other. For the most part when you go into Roy, people are happy to see you and happy to talk and laugh with you. But today it was very sad. It will be a very hard time for everyone here this week, but we have each other and we will be alright, because we will make sure of it. This is my town and this is why I love it. Not because of what it looks like, but because of how it makes me feel.

By Heather Mitchell from Roy NM

Shancee Howell, Blog 6

2011-06-27T14:01:00.000-07:00

This past week has definitely been a learning experience. Katy and I had an adventure, to say the least, on our theater project. We started out with our 50's theme renovation on the theater on Monday, by rounding up the supplies necessary for painting. We decided we needed to do all this running around on the day that it happened to rain 3.11 inches. Katy and I had our picture on the front page of the Greeley County Republican, as the caption reads "Katelyn Reynolds wades into the more-than-ankle-deep water running down Broadway Monday, as Shancee Howell holds the car door open for her. Moment's later, Katelyn's sandals were floating down the street too. The two Community Development interns were picking up old newspapers in preparation for painting at the Star Theater." I made Katy go get the newspapers because I had tennis shoes on (haha). I guess we can say thank Heaven for the moisture.

Katy and I began our work in the theater by taping and then painting. We painted a glass candy display case, the table that the cash register sets on, and then painted a pin strip on the other display case. We let it dry a bit, and then began peeling off the tape, only to find that our tape bled; and as we peeled off the tape, the paint came with it. Talk about two sad little girls (haha). We made another trip back to the lumber yard, and they informed us of the tape we should have bought, and sure enough it did work a lot better. We spent the rest of our time touching up things to make it presentable for the matinee showing on Thursday. However, I do have to admit that Katy and I have had fun working on this project. I am excited to get it complete because right now it looks a little "out going" with the black and turquoise paint. I just really hope it all comes together in the end.

Before

After week one

Katy taping the candy case

Me taping the light fixtures

Tia Hadley #2

2011-06-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

This past week I did the explore your community challenge. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I thought I knew my community pretty well. I have lived here for almost ten years and believed I knew every thing about my community. But I learned a lot on my trip through Atwood Kansas. I started the trip at my supervisor's office and began walking toward the lake. The past year a lot of new things have happened in my town. New buildings, redecorating, new businesses and new owners. The first thing I noticed right when I stepped out of Chris' office was the new gazebo the Farmers' state bank had built in the empty lot next to them. It made the town look so much more beautiful. They also redesigned the bank. They completely redid the outside of it. Just these little changes really fixed up the town. I started walking towards the lake and on my way there I noticed little things that I never knew about my community. At the grade school they started a garden project and they really fixed up the front of the school. It looks so nice. When I got to the two gas stations I saw the new welcome to Atwood sign that beckons all to our town. Our gas station was changed into a Casey's just recently. They redid the whole store and looks great. Not only did they fix up old buildings on the highway but even ones that were still in use really making it look nicer and not shabby. A lot of towns around Atwood really look rundown and not very well taken care of, but my town looks gorgeous. It makes me proud when people come here who have never been here and see how beautiful our town is. The city council, mayor and the community have done a lot to keep our community looking nice and trying to get people to stay here and come back. Now we even have water in the lake again. After years of it being dried up there is now water in it again. It attracts all kinds of wild life and looks so beautiful. Even the high school has been recently remodeled. The built on a whole new band and music room complete with a new concession stand. This school year was the first year it was used. I got to see it when I came back for a football game. After the lake I walked to our new pool. For years the town has been raising money to build a new pool. Our old pool was falling apart and cracked and had tons of problems. Finally after many years of struggling we finally started to build our new pool. In late May it was finished and opened to the public for the first time. When I went to the pool for the first time I was amazed. It looked so good. There were water effects, a slide, a diving board and and area for our swim team to practice. The whole pool is brand new even the bath house. I always new my town had many nice qualities but I never new how beautiful and unique it was. While I was walking around I counted all the businesses we had. I was amazed to realize that we had over sixty businesses!! And most of them were locally owned and started from nowhere by people who had faith in our community. One new business that everyone seems to be really enjoying is the new coffee shop. It's called Mojo's and sell all types of coffee and smoothies and doughnuts and bagel and all sorts of goodies. They even gave my sister a chance to sell her unique cupcakes at their shop. She was so excited that so many people were supporting her and her passion of baking. The bowling alley has recently got new owners who have really switched it up and brought it back to its original splendor. It is slowly becoming the hang out it used to be. The owners are really young and bring in the youth of community giving them jobs and a safe place to hang out. My community has really grown and changed into something that I really love and am proud of.

Larissa Gardner: Blog Number 3

2011-06-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hello All,

Working on A Woman's Touch has been very beneficial to the learning objectives I'm working toward in the Ogallala Commons internship. The oral histories are all about finding the place in history and telling stories. I have done two Oral Histories so far, Sister Corinne Lange and Sister Mary Hawkins. I caught Sister Corinne Lange in Nazareth when she came back for a visit. How serendipitous! She grew up in Nazareth during the Depression and left for the Sisterhood in Ft. Smith when she moved there to complete her High School education in the Convent. She was going to be a teacher, but a classmate who was assigned to work in the hospital hated it so Sister Corinne switched with her and became a nurse instead!

Sister Corinne Lange and me.

Sister Mary Hawkins lives at the Benedictine Monastery outside Canyon, TX. Unlike Sister Corinne, she did not choose the Sisterhood from an early age. She grew up and graduated High School as a Protestant and moved to Washington, DC to work at the Pentagon during World War II. She went to an Episcopal church because she liked the Catholic Liturgy she remembered from Nazareth, but she would go around the corner after Communion to listen to the rest of the service at the Catholic Church. Then she realized that she could save time and energy by becoming Catholic! She felt a strong call to the Sisterhood and returned to Ft. Smith to the Sisters she knew from school.

Sister Mary Hawkins

Hope everyone is having a great time this summer!

Larissa

Blog #2

2011-06-17T19:03:00.001-07:00

Hey again everyone I hope everyones interships are going as well as mine. This week I did my walk through pretty much my whole town and well there is not much but the places we have are exactly what we need to keep our community up and going.

So this is the part of town that I would say is upperclass the more rich part of town :) There are some beautiful houses and I know its not the best picture but I could not figure out a way to get a few houses in.

This would be apart of our Gins With these we have many semi trucks go through our town every day. We dont realize how essiential they are to our community.

I am only putting up these two pictures but while walking throuhgout the town I realized that Our convenient store, grocery store, pavilion and even basketball courts is what brings our community together and makes us stronger. Every community will have its rotten potatoes but in the end we all come together like one big family.

Larissa Gardner: Blog 2 (Walking Tour)

2011-06-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Since West Texas A&M opened their Amarillo Center in the Chase Bank building I've spent considerably more time in Downtown. I thought it would be a nice walking tour to go down and capture some of the old Neon that still exists down there as well as take a look at buildings that have been re-purposed in order to revitalize the Center City.

Paramount Theater
The Paramount Theater has a great
Neon sign that's mounted on a beautiful Art Deco facade. These days the theater has been re-purposed and houses Rain Sushi Bar. True to the Walking Tour's purpose to find new things, I went in and discovered this beautiful grand staircase inside!

Grand Staircase

Service Bay

Avenue 10

Another re-purposed building is a mechanic shop with plenty of protected parking. This bay is the undercuts the corner of its building. Now the bay serves as parking for one of Amarillo's Community Theaters. The waiting area and offices of the body shop now contain ticket sales, concessions, seating and stage for Avenue Ten!

People often think of downtown renovation in smaller towns such as those which have been bypassed by Interstate Highways, but it is a phenomenon found in larger towns as well. If buildings are run down and unused, they are prone to disrepair or worse. Even a popular building such as the Paramount Theater can become an eyesore if it is not taken care of. The re-purposing and re-decoration of this Amarillo landmark likely saved the building!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Larissa

Shancee Howell, Blog 5

2011-06-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

Last week was a week to go in the history books. We had Biking Across Kansas return to our rural community, and it nearly doubled our population. We had approximately 800 riders along with their trucks, busses, tents, and supporters. I know that I blogged some of my community service hours as BAK, but because this event was such a big one, we spent a lot of time preparing for it. Biking Across Kansas is approximately eight days long, and covers over 475 miles. I tip my hat to these bikers, because there is no way you could ever pay me enough to ride through the western Kansas wind to the eastern Kansas humidity and hills.
Katy and I hung up forty Welcome 2011 Biking Across Kansas signs in local businesses throughout town. Several businesses extended their house to try and accommodate for the bikers. Also, the theater produced an extra showing of Something Borrowed; however, we did not have very much success with this, because it was the same time as BAK meeting.

The bicyclist camped at different locations, some on the practice football field, some on the hard gym floor, and some under the covering of the 4-H show ring. It was interesting listening to the different comments, Mrs. Miles and I would ask how everyone slept as we were taking money for the 4:30 breakfast feed, and the comments ranged from, “I didn’t get a wink of sleep from the squeaking of the bathroom doors,” to “how do you guys live with this wind?” Well I guess we could say welcome to western Kansas. It was fun to have such an event come to Tribune, because everyone has been and will be talking about it for days.

Tia Hadley Blog #1

2011-06-13T11:09:00.001-07:00

I'm Tia Hadley and I'm from Atwood Kansas. I'm a sophomore at the University of Nebraksa at Kearney and I'm majoring in biochemistry and theater. I recently got engaged and am really excited to get married when I'm done with college. I found out about this internship from reading about it in my town's newspaper. I hope I can help my community through this internship and work on skills that will help me with my career in the future. Also I'm really excited to learn more about my community and the people who live in it.

I have a very big family. I have three sisters, one brother, three step sisters and two step brothers. In my spare time I love to read as much as I can, listen to music, play video games and hang with friend. My career goals are to get my docotorate in biochemistry and work as a biochemist doing medical research. I want to do research on diseases like cancer and diabetes. I have already got started doing research on diabetes last semester. I wrote a paper over my research and it got published.

Heather Mitchell First Bolg

2011-06-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

My name is Heather Mitchell from Roy NM. I attending Roy high school I will be a senior this coming year. I found out about OC Community Internship Program from my mom how found it on Facebook. What I want to get out of this is a way to help my little town and be a part of it. I have little spare time for I am all ways doing something if it FFA 4-h sports or help on my family ranch but when I do have free time I like getting on Facebook talking to friends that live far from me. What I like to add is that I am very passionate about FFA in fact I was just at an FFA tripe this past week and I just got home last night.

DeLesa Perez Blog #1

2011-06-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone my name is DeLesa Alexandra Perez I am 19 years old and am currently attending West Texas A&M University where I am majoring in Advertising and Public relations and if you ask me what is it that you actually want to do my answer is I have no idea :) I live in Hart Texas and then in Canyon Texas when I attend school I have one younger sibling, she is 12 and sometimes I just cant stand her but I am sure I am not the only one that feels this way. I have participated in this internship now the past two summers this being my third and I have had such wonderful experience. I have met alot of new faces and made many new friends, I have learned alot about not only my self but my community. I hope to be able to explore more into my community with this internship and be more involoed then I have been I am definitly going to take it more serious then I have in the past.

These are some of the kids I will be working with throughout the summer while they are in summer school.

2011-06-08T15:25:00.000-07:00

Hello!

My name is Larissa Gardner. I grew up on a ranch outside the little town of San Jon, NM. I'm a Masters' Student in History at WTAMU in Canyon, TX. My emphasis in the degree is on Public History because I love the subject so much I want to make it fun for others. I will start my Thesis next semester and hope to be finished in the next year and a half. I have two lovely daughters (one is 19 and the other is 12) who live very near me, so I'm lucky enough to see them whenever I want to!

I found out about the Ogallala Commons Intern Program last year and had a great experience working in my field; so I wanted to come back for another round! This summer I will focus on the Benedictine Sisters who came out to Nazareth, TX from Ft. Smith, Arkansas to teach at the school. This exhibit will also discuss the women from Nazareth who followed their example and left to become Sisters! "A Woman's Touch" will feature a multi-panel exhibit in time for the Nazareth German Fest. In addition I will be publishing a booklet which showcases both the new "Sisters" exhibit and the "Pioneer Pastors" exhibit put together last year by Ogallala Commons Interns. Besides those two major projects, I will be assisting the Holy Family Cemetery with several projects as well.

Larissa Gardner

My Daughters and Me

Shancee Howell, Community Service, Blog 4

2011-06-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

Many people my age would frown if the words community service was mentioned; however, I thoroughly enjoyed every hour that I completed. It is a good feeling to know you are benefiting the community, and the people here are so very grateful for it.
My first duty of serving my community was completed at theater. The Star Theater in Tribune is a non-profit organization, and is ran by volunteers. Our theater has really came a long ways, I remember when I was in high school the seats used to be so uncomfortable, and the theater was a little bit ran down; conversely, now it is revamped and has a welcoming feeling when entering. Therefore, my first forty-five minutes were completed by assisting my boss, Christy, run the concession stand while the movie Soul Surfer played. We had a decent turn out that night, and had a lot of fun working together. Christy is so very active in so many things in our community, it is very beneficial to work under her, and to see the different things she does.
My next few hours of community service were devoted to recreation. I spent an hour helping the T-Ball children register, and then I stuck around to watch them play. That was an experience, I had so much fun watching them run around the bases, trying to hold on to their helmets (which were about three sizes to big). It was entertaining watching how excited they were when the hit the ball; half of them forgot to run. My next three and half hours were spent running the score board for the softball games. If it were not for the nasty Western Kansas wind, I would have enjoyed this more. However, it was fun to be involved, and it was fun to see people that I would not have seen otherwise. It is interesting to look at it from a by standers prospective, how some teams are so serious while others are there just to have a good time, and it’s a social event. This was a great opportunity for me, and I even got recruited to play as a substitute. Our recreation program is defiantly one of a kind, and it is so outstanding that they offer so many activities for people of all ages.
To round out my hours, I assisted with Biking Across Kansas. Biking Across Kansas (BAK) has 35 years of history, and we were happy to have them come to our rural community. Our towns’ population defiantly expanded with the invasion of bicyclist. BAK now limits its participates to 800. The ages of these participates ranged from six years old to eighty years old. There are sixteen stops on the BAK trail, and they include Tribune, Leoti, Scott City, Dighton, Ness City, La Crosse, Hoisington, Geneseo, McPherson, Marion, Cottonwood Falls, Emporia, Burlington, Waverly, Garnett, and lastly La Cygen. We aided with the serving of free lemonade when the bicyclist first arrived, while the waited for the registration. The next morning, by morning I am referring to 4:30 am, Mrs. Miles and I took money at the door for the breakfast, which was provided by the Greeley County 4H Livestock Club. The breakfast was phenomenal; they served pancakes, French toast, sausage, ham, fruit, coffee, and juice. Yes, 4:30 is really early, but each and every one of the bikers were very appreciative of us being there. It was fun to be apart of this event.
Therefore, all in all, I truly enjoyed my hours of community service. I met people I would not have otherwise, and my horizons where defiantly broadened with this experience. Community service gives such a great feeling of self worth, and it I know members of the community are grateful to have people my age becoming more active in the community.

Shancee Howell, Community Exploration, Blog 3

2011-06-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

After completing the Explore Your Community Activity, I have a whole new respect for Tribune. I never realized how many opportunities there are for activities for all ages. We live in a very unique place, and I am proud to call it home. Our community is very vibrant and bright. Katy and I went on our exploration this morning, and the birds were singing away.
We started our adventure by traveling by the court house and the hospital. For being a rural community we are very lucky to have the hospital facilities that we have. We currently have four full time doctors and have three mid level providers.

Front of the Court House

After this, we continued to the more wealthy East part of town. Then we made our way to the baseball diamonds, swimming pool, and 4H facilities. By this time in our adventure, we just about had to take a dip in our pool; we were starting to get a little hot. We have an outstanding pool, there is a diving board, four slides, and a baby pool we an enormous turtle in it. Once again, our pool is used by people of all ages, in the mornings they have ladies’ lap swim Monday through Friday. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings consist of water aerobics and lab swim. Family night swims are offered Sunday and Wednesday evenings.

Baseball score board

Continuing on, we passed by our school, which is currently under construction. We have a good education program, and we are well known for our athletics. We have several state championships both academically and with sports. From there we visited the grain elevators, and then noticed the west side of town, which could kind of be consisted the not so wealthy side.
The next stop was Moser’s Garage, which is one of the local mechanics shops along with parts store. Also, along this road are a few restaurants and our local convenience store. Now it was on to Main Street. Our main street consists of many businesses, such as the bank, grocery story, drug store, tire shop, and many others.
Gooch's Grocery Store

Another thing I have never paid any attention to is how convenient our town is. Everything is located fairly close. Once again, I am so thankfully I grew up in a community such as this one.

View of Main Street

Shancee Howell, Blog 2

2011-06-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
Well, it’s back from college and back to work. I am very excited to be back in the office, and we have several big plans for the summer. Since I am a returning intern, we got to work right away, and I did not have to learn my way around.
Because of the fact that the theater is ran through the Greeley County Community Development center, and is nonprofit organization we are dealing with it on a daily basis. Therefore, my first day consisted of tabulating surveys that were sent out to the community to get the community views on the theater. This survey was sent to all box holders; therefore, everyone had a chance to respond. Another task of mine is to make sure the theater has plenty of ice for the upcoming weekend. Also, after the weekends, I calculate the money from both the concessions and the admissions, and get the deposits ready to go to the bank. We are also still trying to keep downtown Tribune revitalized, thus, I assisted in planting the flowers in front of the theater. It sure makes a huge difference, when you look down Main Street, and almost all business have flowers in front of them; it gives a very welcoming feeling to the community.

Next, I spent several hours working on entering data for a directory of the Kansas Agriculture Rural Leadership (KARL) program, in which Christy is very active in. The Kansas Agriculture Rural Leadership program is “a two-year program offering intensive study, training, and travel for future leaders in agriculture and rural communities.”
On the 24, we were blessed with the presence of Darryl Birkenfeld, and he enlightened us with the Ogallala orientation. He did a wonderful job and it was nice to have him in our community. Well, that it is on to the next week.

Shancee Howell, Blog 1

2011-06-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

Hello again,

I am Shancee Howell, I am originally from Greeley County, and I very excited to be back for the summer. I received my bachelors in Animal Science for Oklahoma Panhandle State in Goodwell, Oklahoma with a minor in biology, and I continued my education at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I am currently working on my Masters in Ag Business. I absolutely love the land of enchantment, but my roots brought me back to my rural community. After being away, I realize how nice it is to come back where everyone knows you, and where you do not have to worry about locking your vehicles. I am truly blessed to call Tribune home.

I was fortunate enough to hold the Ogallala Commons Internship last summer, and loved it. When I found out there were offering it again, I jumped at the opportunity. The people I would with (Christy Hopkins, Carol Miles, and Katy Reynolds) are absolutely amazing, and this year we are privileged to have another intern in the office. I am excited to work with Katy, she is fun, creative, knowledgeable, and brings lots of energy to the office.

Working here last summer, really broadened my horizon; I realized just how much this office does for our community. I am very thrilled to be apart of it again. This kind of work is not something I am used to, I come from a cattle background, and it is neat to be involved in a different field of work.

Spare time, well appears I do not have a lot of it. However, I spend most of time dealing with horses, cattle, or family. My whole life has been evolved around rodeo, so it is kind of my building block. In fact, that is how I have paid for my college career is through rodeo scholarships. I rope, tie goats, and run barrels. In the past, I have qualified for both the National High School Finals, the College National Finals, along with the Kansas Professional Rodeo Association Finals. When I am not in the office, I am assisting my brother. He rides several colts, and runs cattle on the side. I am a very family orientated and enjoy spending time with them. I am looking forward to a wonderful summer :)

Mary and Shauna Blog #4

2011-05-24T08:49:00.001-07:00

For the final blog we end with our meeting with Tom, Bill, and then meeting up again with Shirley and canning with her. As we close out we realize we’ve learned quite a bit about the old ways of farming and how very commercial we are at this point in our lives. However, we can still manage to get back to the basics with growing our own food. Even now communities are sprouting up gardens for community use, but that’s just the overall look at things.

Firstly, we spoke to Tom Giessel it was more of a running interview as he showed us around the farmland in rural Kansas between Pawnee Rock and Larned. He spoke about his worries about the farmlands as we passed houses that no longer housed farmers but people who did other jobs. At one point he stopped to show us the equipment and the huge sprayer used to keep the crops well. He also pointed out the large bags of seed that he and his brother used. Another the two of us noticed was Tom’s ease on navigating the back roads of the rural areas. He could get us anywhere we needed to be and never once did we really need touch blacktop unless we needed to get to a main road for sure. Tom is also a very big supporter of the Larned Community Garden. For a moment, it takes a person to realize that soon people like Tom are dwindling at the moment, but hopefully as the health consciousness the people who are salt of the earth will be brought anew.

The Gardens that Tom Built

After talking to Tom, we waited just a little while before talking to a very interesting fellow of the name Bill Brenner. He had worked on the farm before tractors came along, and had a few funny stories about the mules. Another thing he said was that at a point in his life wheat was only $0.17 a bushel. Another thing that Bill mentioned was that the children were a big part of the farm life, however, his father did have farm hands to help out with harvest. Unlike most of the stories about farm kids who only make it to school half the year, Bill assured us that his parents made sure he never missed school for harvest. Still with the farming he told us that there were no pesticides to be used, but when the upgrades happened, like the tractor, they were able to work more land. Something else Bill mentioned was that most of the new equipment had been sold under the tag of giving farmers more leisure time, but that didn’t happen all that did happen was farmers were able to have more acres. Still it was very intriguing to take a glance into the past with a man who remembered the Dust Bowl.

Bill Brenner's Family a staple of the past.

Finally after finals we both found our way to Shirley’s house for some good old fashioned canning. Well not completely old fashioned but we didn’t buy our jam. Shirley had picked out a recipe for us to use it was Pine-cot Jam, which in all essence is pineapple and apricot jam. Cheating only a little Shirley had already rehydrated the dehydrated apricots for us, but she still told us exactly how we could rehydrate the apricots if we wanted to. She also told us how to sterilize the jars by putting them in the oven and putting the lids in a pot of water to boil. After that it was taking turns on putting in the ingredients and stirring the contents. We allowed the mixture to boil for two or three minutes before we took the hot glass jars out of the oven, with tongs of course, and began the assembly of our jam.

Mary stirring the Jam.

First we put the hot jars in a pot and then scooped the warm jam out with a cup, not a drinking cup but a measuring cup, and poured it into the jar. After that we picked up the lids, with the tongs again, and then screwed it on the jar with using a cool, wet towel. Finally after tightening the lids we placed them in a large pot to help seal it with the boiling water. The final step only took about ten minutes before we could retrieve our jars with another tong like cooking device. Then we set them on the countertop to cool. It was really interesting and fun to actually make things, taking the hands on approach was interesting to say the least.

Shauna pouring Jam

Over all we both can say that this was a very interesting learning process and an experience we were glad to share with the amazing people that we did indeed share it with. We have many thanks to everyone we spoke to and who allowed us to learn more about this subject.

Mary and Shauna Blog #3

2011-05-24T08:48:00.001-07:00

Larned's Garden

Going organic and growing your own garden is not something that is just part of the past, it is still very much a part of the present and future. After meeting with Shirley Smith, we needed to talk to someone who had and garden and canned their own food today. This led to us met with Julie Peterson, a teacher at Barton Community College. While talking to her we learned about how she was going back to growing her own vegetable and canning food, a lot like what Shirley did. During our interview, we learned that one of the reasons she started a garden was because of her grandson’s ADHD; she did not want to put anymore chemicals into his body. Plus, with three other grandchildren at her house during the summer, she needed a way to keep them busy and thought gardening was the perfect idea. According to Julie, her grandchildren loved planting seeds in small containers in the house, and eventually it all grew into a much bigger garden that would require a lot of hard work. She also told us that it wasn’t easy to garden because it required the planting of certain flowers to keep away certain bugs and to attract others. To learn all of these little tricks, Julie had to take master gardening courses. To keep up with the weeds and to make sure everything ripe is picked Julie and her granddaughters will spend 2 to 3 hours a day in the garden. But gardening was not enough for Julie. She also wanted organic meat. To accomplish this Julie would buy an entire grass-fed cow and have it butchered. We asked Julie if this change was cheaper for her and she said yes. However, she would still manage to spend a hundred dollars at Wal*Mart for things that she couldn’t make like toilet paper, paper towels, and more.

Julie also said she would go to the Farmers Market or she would drive all the way to Glenn’s Bulk Food, which is right outside of Hutchinson, Kansas on Highway 50, for her fifteen pounds of butter. It’s a lot of driving, but for food that is good, and tastes better, for her family it was worth it. Julie also shared a few stories of when she would make her own pizza sauce and how much her grandkids and husband loved her pizza. One time she forgot to get her sauce out of the freezer and so she had had to resort to store bought food. The second her grandchildren bit into the pizza, they knew there was something wrong; it was too salty. They wanted her to never use anything other than her sauce again. By Julie making her own food, she knows why is in it. Overall, despite the hard work and the long hours that she’d have to put into her garden and canning, Julie says it’s worth it. The money that Julie and her granddaughters make at the farmer’s market will go towards the girls’ savings.

Not everyone has the time to start a huge gardening project, but that still doesn’t mean that they have to buy all of their foods from large corporate stores like Wal*Mart. State cooperatives are also a good way to get food and other merchandise. The Oklahoma Food Coop and the High Plains Food Coop are two local food coops. These coops sell homemade supplies and food from Kansas and Oklahoma. These items include everything from detergent made out of goat’s milk to gardening supplies to food. These coops are almost like an organic Wal*Mart. The really nice thing about buying from these coops is there is a description of each item telling what it is made of. To join and sell or buy through the Oklahoma Food Cooperative, you pay a one-time fee, almost like you are buying a share of stock. The High Plains coop had an annual of fee and you could enter as a non-voting member or own a share of their stock. Both of these coops are wonderful and everyone should check them out! Here are the links: www.oklahomafood.coop
www.highplainsfood.org

Mary and Shauna Blog #2

2011-05-24T08:47:00.001-07:00

After diving into research about food production during WWII, we set up an interview with Shirley Smith to talk to her about victory gardens. We met with her to have lunch and before we got into the formal interview process we had a conversation about our daily lives and talked to her about herself to make the atmosphere more confortable. As we talked, we learned that Shirley lived in a rural area in northern Kansas around the Russell area. She expressed the fact that even before the war, the rural communities relied on gardens and canning the produce from the garden. Shirley said that women took great pride in their gardens and what they could grow. The women would save the seeds from each growing season and plant them again the next year. If they didn’t plant them again, they would trade with neighbors for already made products or more seeds. The planting and tending process was a family ordeal with the women and children and as was the canning process. The women canned everything from vegetables to meat, with meat being the hardest to can. Shirley seemed to focus in on the fact that the process of canning a pickle was not done right unless a loud ‘snap’ was heard when biting into the pickle.

Shauna, Mary, and Shirley during our interview

After the beginning of the war for the Americans, the canning process became a little more difficult for these women of rural Kansas because of the rationing on sugar, which was a vital ingredient for the canning process. Being a neighbor was a large part of making the rationing process and canning process easier on families. Families with more children were allowed more coupons for sugar and could share with their neighbors when they had extra. Trading or bartering with neighbors was a large part of society in rural Kansas. While talking about trading with neighbors, we brought up the subject of going to the store or getting new things when it was needed. Shirley said this really wasn’t part of their lives at this time, they used what they had, and when it broke they did without because it couldn’t be fixed anymore. Towards the end of our interview we asked Shirley why everyone stopped growing their victory gardens right after the war was over. She told us she believed everyone was tired of doing without and now that they could have more and didn’t have to work as hard, they could just rest.

After the interview with Shauna, Shirley, Linda, and Mary

We also talked with Shirley about community gardens and why she thinks it is important for people to grown their own gardens today. She believes that getting your hands dirty is therapeutic. Shirley is helping with a community garden that is across the street from Park Elementary School in Great Bend. She brings the children over in the spring to help with this garden. She believes this experience gives the children something to be proud of when they can plant a seed and watch it grow and gives them smaller responsibilities. For every weed a child pulls, they get to take home a fruit or vegetable.

For our next blog, we have already planned another oral history with a teacher at Barton County Community College. She has gone back to growing organically and shopping less at the local stores. She believes this makes her whole family healthier. We will also be discussing information we have found about the Oklahoma and Kansas Food Coops.

Shauna studying the Farmers Bulletin gave to us by Tom Geissel

Mary Bitter Blog #1 - Food Production

2011-05-24T08:46:00.000-07:00

The first initiative of our internship is to begin to understand the history of which shaped the way we produce food today. We will be looking at, and comparing, food production from the 1940's to the present. Initially, as a duo, we have begun to look into the past, learning more about what exactly a victory garden was and why they were an important part of the war effort during World War II. To get a full understanding of the past and present, we will be researching articles, taking trips to local farms, and also conducting oral histories with those who have experience with victory gardens and also those with experience surrounding large and small scale food production.

Our main focus will be local food production. When looking in grocery stores around our area, we have found it quite difficult to find products that are locally grown. Most products are shipped to the local stores from many different places around the world. There are a few exceptions. For example, farmers from St, John will bring their melons to Dillon’s, a Kroeger supermarket. Also, we do have a Farmers Market during the summer, but the amount of people shopping there is considerably less than the amount that goes through the local grocery stores. Is this small farmers market enough to show that home grown foods is making a comeback? The subject of current and local food production will be elaberated more later on after we do more research and a few interviews!

This is what a common, small town, farmers market looks like.

Our first research project was finding information about food production during the 1940's. We learned that the government started pushing citizens all over the US to take part in the war effort by growing victory gardens. The gardens were meant to help with feeding families because of labor shortages and lack of transportation to ship products. After the word got around about victory gardens, up to 20 million people had gotten into helping with the war effort and began their victory gardens. These gardens could be seen popping up anywhere from back yards to window gardens to empty lots. The vegetables and fruits grown in these victory gardens were often canned for personal use. This was done so that the commercially canned foods could be saved for the Red Cross to ship overseas to aid men and women in the armed services.

This poster was commonly seen around the US in the 1940's it was used to promote growing victory gardens!

Unfortunately, after the war ended, people no longer were planting victory gardens. By the summer of 1946 there were no victory gardens left in the US. Because of this abrupt stop in subsistence, or self-sufficient, farming there was a food shortage. This was because large food production companies did not have the time or resources to ship massive amounts of food to the grocery stores that quickly. We feel that the event of the end of victory gardens shows how quickly the American people were eager to get back to the ease of relying on commercial food production to feed their families instead of getting out in the heat of summer and working in their gardens.

Megan England, Final Blog

2010-09-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is ladies and gentlemen; the final posting on this blog about my experience as a 2010 Ogallala Commons summer intern. As most of you know, I did my internship through two community entities, Baca County Economic Development and the Town of Campo, and now…I’m done. I've had a harvesting ceremony and my final presentation to the city council will hopefully be a week from today!

Above: Here I am at my harvesting ceremony, talking about all the meetings I attended as an intern.

As I head into my junior year, I’m amazed at all the experiences I’ve been offered as an intern, and I’m still just in high school! It’s been an incredible ride, so let me share a little with you about what I’ve done and what I’ve learned…

Each of the opportunities I had fit into one or more of the seven key experiences as an Ogallala Commons intern. The first key experience is “supporting local food production”. Although this was not a major part of my internship, I did get to help organize a tour of a local producer’s large gardens for a community tour. This also fit into another key experience, “discovering place”.

Discovering my place was a huge part of my internship as I spent enumerable hours learning about local businesses while I created a county business directory, as well as several hours working on organizing tours of the area for various reasons. Those projects also fit into the key experience of “revitalizing my community”. The purpose of the business directory, as well as an alumni directory I began was to keep people informed about businesses the area has, businesses we need, and businesses for sale. The more locals we have that own local businesses, which buy from other local businesses, the more economically stable our community will be! (Did you catch all that?)

Another part of revitalizing my community that I got to help with was included in my volunteer hours, I spent a day working with others in my community at the annual “Campo Clean-Up Day” where the locals get together and make our town beautiful. Not to mention the historic tourism public service announcement for which I was a film intern!

A big part of my internship fit right into the key experience “designing my career path”. I hope to major in journalism and/or communications and I spent a lot of time this summer writing for the local newspapers and designing/updating websites. For several articles that I wrote, I had to do interviews, and that brings us to the experience “learning and sharing stories”. I helped organize our town’s summer festival and as part of that, I did an oral history interview with the 2010 parade marshals for the festival. They were already on my list of favorite people *smiley face*, but it was neat learning about them and then being able to share their story during the festival. Which, surprisingly (or perhaps not so much) brings me to another big part of my internship—finding my voice. I’ve done a lot of speaking since I joined the Youth Advisory Council, and I’ve taken public speaking classes through a near-by college, and believe me, I was very thankful for YAC and that class this past summer! I spoke at meetings, I spoke at the Connecting Kids to Community Camp (a leadership camp for elementary students), I spoke during tours I gave, and I spoke while we filmed the public service announcements. Coming from a person who is not particularly fond of speaking…I actually had a lot of fun with that part!

Above: You can't really tell, but that is me in the driver's seat of the parade marshals' convertible. That's right, I drove the parade marshal's convertible in the parade!

The final key experience of my internship was “being a community volunteer” and you can read all about that in my blog especially dedicated to community volunteerism!

I enjoyed all of the projects I worked on, but my two favorites were one of the first (the public service announcement), and the very last, a historic tour. In June, our local café received a letter from a woman born near Campo in the 1930s. Her family relocated because of the Dust Bowl, and she wanted to visit the area again with her sisters, but didn’t know who to contact. The letter was given to me, and through a series of events you can read about here, I organized a tour and finally, last Tuesday, I got to meet them! As we spoke, I was reminded again how much I have to be thankful for in the place that I call home! So, ladies, if you’re reading this, thanks for coming to our town, I loved communicating with you this summer and getting to meet you!

Above: Here I am meeting Margaret, Mildred, and Ruth for the first time (I'm in the black shirt)!

Those two projects kind of summed up a theme I noticed throughout my internship, because they really brought home to me the fact that what myself and other interns are doing is very important. Whether we know it or not, our homes need us. Rural America is a priceless treasure we’ve been given, and it is part of our job to keep our towns places that people want to return to, places that folks like us want to call home!

I can’t say enough thank-yous to everyone who made this summer an experience worth remembering! Many special thanks to my sponsors, the City of Campo and Baca County Economic Development, specifically Mrs. Nikki Johnson and Mrs. Laneha Everett, and also my fellow Campo/Baca County interns, Sara Wheeler and Keshian Hoeffner!

To read all of my blogs, click the links on the sidebar, or go in this order…
Introduction Blog, Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Community Service Blog

Above: Just one of those end-of-summer pictures! Here is Keshian and myself at a concert by the Josh Abbott Band! (Trivia-one of the band members is from our hometown!)

Th-th-tha-that's all folks!

Community Service, England

2010-09-06T12:35:00.000-07:00

Community volunteering has always been a part of my life, my parents are volunteer EMTs, and I’ve been part of a thing called Service-Learning since I was in sixth grade. So, getting in ten hours of community service wasn’t a big deal for me, actually, I accidentally went a little overboard and ended up with about twenty-five!

I started my volunteer hours organizing choir students from the group out of Ozark Christian College “Highest Praise” with host families in Campo for their concert held here in June. We hosted some of them at my house, and the concert was great! Learn more by checking out this blog!

The second volunteer project I worked on was another thing I help with every summer, the Annual Campo Clean-Up Day. Every local person available wakes up at the crack of dawn and works until almost sundown doing things like mowing, trimming trees, raking, painting, and making our town more beautiful. This year was as successful as ever, and my specific project was helping clean-up the local outdoor tennis and basketball courts. I ended the day much as everyone else; tired, sun-burned, and smiling!

The next project was the 27th (I think it was) annual Quick Response Team Sale/Volunteer Firemen’s Auction. As I said, my parents and sister are EMTs, and my dad is the volunteer fire chief, so I always get to help out, but this year, I got a little extra responsibility. I spent several hours going through the boxes and boxes of donated stuff (I will not call it junk…I will not call it junk…I will not…just kidding, it’s actually pretty amazing what we find—some pretty cool stuff)! On the day of the sale, I created a re-useable spreadsheet to keep track of all the people bidding and how much each person’s bill was. This also helped us come up with an approximate figure of how much money was raised before we even counted the money! I finished up that part of my volunteering by writing this article!

My next (and probably largest) volunteer project was helping to organize and advertise the annual Campo Watermelon Festival. I created a Facebook page for the festival, helped create flyers for individual events and the main event flyer, as well as the grand schedule of events. I also got to help be in charge of creating a scavenger hunt with questions about local histories and mysteries, with a few challenges thrown in like “perform a song and dance to a children’s tune”. The festival was held on August 14th, and was a huge success. Check out more photos here and here!

Above: This picture is myself and some friends having some fun in the sun on the giant slip'n'slide at the festival. (I'm on the far right). Above: Here we are tallying up scares for the annual scavenger hunt (again, I'm on the far right facing away from the camera)

The final big volunteer project I worked on was spending two nights working concessions at Baca County’s historic movie theater, “The Capital”. (Point of interest-the Capital Theater will be featured in the public service announcements mentioned here) I’d never worked at a theater before, so that was a new and fun experience, and I’m now on the official list of volunteers, so if you ever go to the movies in Springfield, Colorado…keep an eye out for me! To see the movies that were showing while I worked, check out this blog!

So folks, there you have it! The majority of my 10 hours plus of community service as a 2010 Ogallala Commons intern! Check out my next blog as I will be wrapping up my internship with a final reflection!

Week 8, England

2010-08-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

Well folks, my apologies for being so late on this, but I have been incredibly busy. (Oh, wait! I say that every time…). I have been frantically trying to finish everything I’ve been working on before school starts again in less than a week. That’s right folks, my time as an Ogallala Commons Summer 2010 Intern is coming down to a few short hours! This last week has been hectic, admittedly, but it’s also been kind of exhilarating.
I spent a lot of time working on my last two volunteer projects, the Campo Watermelon Festival, and then volunteering for concession duty at the local movie theater (look for more about that in my Community Service Blog). Below are the two movies that I helped with.

I also got to help set up a booth at our county fair about Economic Development, and then I helped to organize the people’s choice awards for the 2010 Youth Entrepreneurship Fair (the E-fair was in the spring, the People’s Choice Awards are held during county fair).

When I wasn’t doing those things, I was preparing for my Baca County Economic Development Intern Harvesting Ceremony held on Tuesday. The event went pretty well, and I am now officially done as a BCEDC intern, and will spend my last days of the Campo internship creating my harvesting ceremony presentation for Campo and my lovely intern folder. Look for my final blog and my community service blog (coming soon) to learn more about what the last weeks of my internship have been about, and how amazing this summer has been!

This is a piece of the powerpoint I used at my harvesting ceremony!

Community Service, Emma Cress

2010-08-05T15:13:00.000-07:00

My favorite parts of summer are the ones where I get to hang out with friends and family, do something fun, and just have a good time. Our county fair and my town’s summer celebration, best known as “Weskan Days”, are two events where I get to do just that. However, any community event requires a huge number of people and hours of to put on, so every summer I usually try to help out with a few things at the fair and Weskan Days.

This summer, I also did some work at my hometown’s community garden that they just started this year—weeding, watering, and distributing the yummy things that have grown.Every family in town is taking a turn during the summer tending to it. The summer produce is going to be given to the elderly residents of Weskan that can’t grow their own garden. Once school starts, the 5^th grade class will be responsible for the garden and the school cafeteria will use the fresh produce.

As I mentioned, Weskan Days is a huge event for my town. We pack everything possible into a weekend in July. On Friday evening there is a 5K race and an outdoor movie. Saturday brings a softball tournament for all ages, garden tour, giant water slide, community barbeque, and live music for a dance. Sunday morning before it really heats up, we have an outdoor community worship service followed by breakfast. This year I helped with advertising and ran the softball tournament. It required a lot of preparation to get paperwork packets together for all the teams. Then during the tournament I did a little announcing and a ton of scorekeeping. The tournament runs from about 8:30 a.m. to 4 or 5 in the afternoon. Fortunately, we had an old school bus that has been setup with speakers and a scorekeeper’s table inside. That helped make the 105 degree day more tolerable.

The last week in July is always fair time in Wallace County. It’s the biggest summer event in the county and usually brings lots of relatives and visitors to the area. My mom and I have been overseeing Open class (the non 4-H stuff) food entries for about four years now. Anyone in the county can enter baked goods or their best canning. Judges from outside the county come Thursday and spend their morning critiquing, scrutinizing, and selecting the winners. I help people that bring something to fill out exhibit cards, then assist the judge by organizing the entries and presenting them to her in their designated categories. On Friday evening, I worked in the concession stand during the carnival. The concessions are completely volunteer-run and helps support our home-owned carnival. It was a new and crazy experience. There is always a line, and usually about 15 people running around trying to make change or pour tea or construct a frito pie, but it’s still a lot of fun. The carnival is made possible by volunteer labor, as well. This year I worked a shift at the children’s game called “Plinko.” It used to be my favorite when I was about six-years-old, mostly because it requires no skill and relatively little luck.

At the county fair, our local organization of churches always hosts a barbecue that feeds more than 1,000 people. My family always helps out. We serve food or pour drinks and help clean up afterward. If you’re really lucky, like I was this year, you get to shovel the meat out of the giant smoker into five gallon buckets and carry it inside to the roasters it’s served out of. Never let anyone tell you Kansans can’t put away a whole lot of barbecue.

I hope you all had as much fun as I did serving in your community. Maybe you’ve even found something you can continue to be involved with for years to come. If so, keep after it. Small communities run on volunteerism. It’s just one of the things that make us unique and really special places to live.

Week 6 1/2, Emma Cress

2010-08-05T12:40:00.000-07:00

I’m now getting to the end of my internship. To be honest, I’m actually there. My final hours were at the Ogallala Commons Funders and Board Retreat. The Retreat was a blast. It was so wonderful to be back in the Aberdeen Steakhouse. I feel like Western Kansas spirit just saturates that place! Sometimes you need to step out of your own backyard to be reminded of the beauty that exists there. A fresh perspective can work wonders. I loved meeting the other interns, speakers, and board members. The stories told by the interns about their projects and passions made me want to do about 300 more things during my internship. One of my favorite parts was talking with Blenda and her advisor Elizabeth. It was really fun to hear how she is combining her passions and education, which are very similar to my own, with community development. She gave me a host of ideas for my “return” to rural Kansas after college and grad school. Being able to merge a desire to see your small town prosper and a sports medicine education is tricky, but as I learned, not impossible. It always inspires me to be surrounded by people that see irreplaceable value in the lifestyle and culture that I love. So often I hear “I drove through Kansas once and haven’t been back.” I tell them that they must have driven through the wrong part, because where I live is beautiful. So I was able to return to Wallace County reinvigorated by the passion I saw during those hot July days.

Week 4 K.Hoeffner

2010-08-03T11:20:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, sorry it's been awhile...I've been super busy! So it's about that time to wrap up my internship for the town of Campo. Last week on Tuesday Intern Megan England and myself put together a day camp for the youth of out town, throughout the day we talked to the kids about leadership and service. I believe that it is very important for the young youth of the community to learn about what all they can do for their communities. I have also been working on the plans for the Watermelon Festival that will be coming up faster than we know it. Megan and I are trying to put together different things that can be featured at the festival. Are hopes are to draw more people to the festival, we want to show people just how wonderful our little town can be. We also attended the City Council meeting recently and presented to the board everything that we have been working on and just giving them an update. On the 22nd the town had Campo Clean Up Day. it was a great turn out, lots of people came and helped the make the town a cleaner place. I helped with the towns tennis and basketball courts. We did everything from trimming trees to cleaning along the highway. It was a very enjoyable day, it was super neat to see the some of the community members out working to better the community that they live in. So that is about the extent of things that i have been up to for the past two weeks! I sad that the internship is about over but i have learned that there are so many things that i can do for my community!!!!!

Week 6, Emma Cress

2010-08-02T10:10:00.000-07:00

I’ve continued to write articles and started processing whatever information requests come in. One of my county’s downfalls is that contact information is more of a mental directory than a digital PDF copy. A lot of knowing who to call and where to go is based on a life-time of knowledge that newcomers just don’t possess. So our EDA office acts as a bridge across this gap in many cases. My latest projects have been the county’s quarterly leadership breakfast and the county fair display for the EDA and Wallace County Foundation. Our leadership breakfast invites local government and members of various service organizations to come and share an update on news in Wallace County. The event took place at the Fort Wallace Museum at 7am. We rotate the location through the three communities in the county to keep everyone involved. The group eats breakfast together and then start discussing whatever comes up. The picture shows the "new" addition to the museum where we had the breakfast. Our primary mode of getting the word out is by phone calls. So I did a lot of calling in the week before. We also post a notice in the paper and on our facebook page. After the meeting I wrote up a short news article for the paper giving a brief update on what information was shared. I’ve also finished getting everything for my fair booth put together and will display it the week of fair. It's shown below. This summer is going so fast. Hope to see you all very soon in Atwood, KS.

Week 5 Pictures, Emma Cress

2010-08-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

A map of the Western Vistas Historic Byway, officially designated July 15th!

New office, new desk...all set to go in the Economic Development Alliance office.

Week 5, Emma Cress

2010-08-02T08:08:00.001-07:00

I’m now fully moved into the Economic Development Alliance office. I have to tell you, the first thing I put on my project list was to do some picking up and organizing. I may be just a little bit of a neat freak and the side room off the main office where my initial work space was had been basically converted into a storage room. There was a fully decorated Christmas tree lying down behind my chair. It’s also the space where all our brochures and promotional materials are kept. Some of them were old and a few of our new magazines weren’t out yet. With that done, it was time to get busy. One major push in Western KS economic development is to boost tourism. The Western Vistas Historic Byway, the first historic byway in KS, has been a project in the works for about two years now. It’s been spear headed by John Foster, my supervising EDA director and spans about 100 highway miles through Logan, Scott, and Wallace counties and 26 points of interest. In Wallace Co. the byway takes you to the highest point in KS, the Fort Wallace Museum and cemetery, an Antique Pump Organ Museum, and a Union Pacific superintendent’s house—one of only two still standing. It will appear in next year’s official KS road map. I came in more on the tail end of this project, but have been compiling numerous copies of the Corridor Management Plan and getting it to different county locations. Until next time keep up the good work everyone!

P.S. Sorry there are no pictures...I'm having problems with the blog agreeing with them, so I'll put them up as soon as I figure out the issue.

Community Service Blog, Schwarz

2010-08-01T17:04:00.001-07:00

Over the summer, I’ve done several things that count toward community service. These involved organizations such as the Chamber, Rialto, and city pool. Over the 4th of July, I spent four hours down at the pool before it opened, helping the life guards get it cleaned for the rush of people that would be in for the festivites.
Also, during that same weekend, I donated over five hours to the Rialto in preparation of their Open House, and also gave a presentation to the community on behalf of the Chamber.

You learn that in small towns, when people do things they’re not thinking, “community service.” It’s just what needs to get done in order to get to the next thing on the list. It’s amazing to watch people give so much without expecting anything back in return.

Final Blog, Schwarz

2010-08-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon this internship by pure luck. I had emailed my hometown’s Economic Development director to see if she knew of any jobs that I could do in the summer. Unfortunately, especially in a small town, good jobs for young people are hard to come by, and just like I had expected she didn’t know of anything at the moment.
About a week later, Kristi contacted me again. This time explaining about a possible internship that would be available starting in late May, and she wanted to know if I would be interested… yes!
So here I am, three months later, beginning the end of a priceless experience. I went in to this experience with expecting to have fun, learn a little, and earn some money as well. As I come out of it, I look back and see that I had an absolute blast, learned more than I could ever fathom possible, and have opportunities open up for me that enable me to start a career as a sophomore in college.
My major is advertising with a minor in marketing. During this internship, I have created logos, letterheads, and different kinds of templates. I have also written numerous press releases, informative articles, and uplifting letters for the local media. I was also put in charge of creating the advertising forms and packages for the nonprofit theater that I’ve been working with, as well as updating the town’s websites and organizations facebook page and much, much more.
My main job was to provide assistance to the nonprofit organizations in Arnold by helping them with PR, writing, communications, and many other miscellaneous tasks. Throughout the summer, I have worked for the Chamber, the Rialto Theatre, SORC (Sandhills Open Road Challenge), and the Arnold Economic Development Corporation.
The Theatre was my biggest project of the summer. It’s strictly a volunteer-ran organization, so everything that gets done, is done because people care, not because they feel obligated. Every Tuesday, we would have a board meeting. At the beginning, it was hectic and a little frustrating, but in no time, we were off and running on the advertising plan that I was put in charge of doing. Besides expanding my knowledge of advertising, I was also able to enhance my communication skills. Every board meeting, I had to give a presentation and progress report on what I was doing, where I was going, and how I was planning on getting there. Through my involvement in the theatre, I went from a person on the board, to being a progressive board member who was able to contribute in the Rialto’s success. If you would’ve asked me in May if they would be open by August, I would’ve said no. This last Friday, I went to a first-run movie right here in Arnold, along with over 100 other people.

The Sandhills Open Road Challenge was another nonprofit I was able to help out. I mailed out letters to landowners that the race would impact asking for their permission to let spectators watch on their property, or house emergency vehicles for the EMT’s on call. One of the most interesting and enjoyable things that I did through this internship is be the contact person for the SORC’s advertising. I was in charge of getting a hold of newspapers, radio stations, and television stations about them advertising for us. I learned lingo, I learned timelines, and I learned ‘shortcuts’, as my contacts called them. Through this I was able to get the direct contact information for the ad people which I, in turn, was able to compile into a database for Kristi.
Every Fourth of July, the city of Arnold has a festival. One of the biggest parts of the festival is the parade that always kicks it off on Saturday morning. I remember being a little girl and always riding on the banks float- my grandma worked there. It was a HUGE deal! Sadly, for the past five or six years, it shrinks and shrinks until this year, when we were worried if we’d even had enough entries. That’s where I came in. My first assignment was to write a letter to local business owners to try and restore the small-town pride and unity that we all know and love. That letter ended up running in the town paper so the whole community could read it. When the 4th rolled around, we had the biggest parade the town of Arnold has seen in seven years…mission accomplished.
I knew going into this position that it would be a good resume builder, but I had no idea that I would have to totally reconstruct the whole thing when applying for new jobs, this was the case. As is the job aspect, through this internship, I’ve received recognition and attention that I never would have otherwise. I’ve had many opportunities and offers thrown my way that, before this, I would’ve never imagined possible.
People ask me what the one thing I would change about this internship is, the one thing that needs improvement. Here’s my answer, there aren’t enough people involved with it. I think every community should have at least one intern, one, because it would be nice for the community to get things that have been on the backburner done. But it’s also a phenomenal opportunity for the intern. My perception of a small town was that they’re a great place to grow up, but also a place you move away from as soon as you can. This last summer has changed my idea. I attend school in Lincoln, and I couldn’t find an internship there that would give me the amount of experience that the one in Arnold did. Not only was I able to be put into real-life situations, but I was blessed to be able to work for an amazing supervisor, and surrounded by people that made the sun shine just a little brighter. I am exceptionally lucky, grateful, and a lot more confident now that I have completed this internship.

Week 4 (July 19 - 25) Blenda Cooper

2010-07-31T18:13:00.000-07:00

I spent the first part of this week on advertisement and distribution of promotional materials. I posted HPFC brochures (see inset) on bulletin board walls and numbered brochures to mark how many were distributed to each place. I distributed some brochures at Montclair Recreation Center (see inset). This community center is about 3 miles from the Stapleton area. It brings people from all around the state for it's swimming pool programs (rated one of the best in Denver) and for the city's basketball teams. Nuggets player Chauncy Billups also hosted his summer basketball camp at this recreation center.
I also distributed some brochures at Hiawatha Davis Recreation Center (located only about 3 miles or less from Stapleton in Park Hill). I also posted brochures at nearby Credit Unions and Libraries. Then I went on facebook and sent out invitations to the HPFC page and invited people to "like" the page. Many of the invitations that I sent out were to people who live near Park Hill and Stapleton. Other cities represented (to name a few - I sent invites to 100 people) were Broomfield (further up north), Cherry Creek (just south east of downtown), downtown Denver and northwest Aurora (southeast of Stapleton).
Later this week I met with Alisha Brown, Program Director for the Stapleton Foundation Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative . Ms. Brown stated that the Stapleton Foundation is interested in bringing healthier foods into underserved areas near Stapleton and that the Foundation wants to be involved in hosting a Farmers Market but that it would take over a month to coordinate an event. I told her that I'm interested in hosting an event sooner. During this week I also spent time emailing Chris Srmack regarding advertising prices and he informed me of who the HPFC competition are and to research competition prices. So I met with Becky Gay (my advisor and a current HPFC member) to organize all of the information and in order to have an event that I can host in a short period of time that wouldn't require a lot of man power she and I came up with 2 event options: a booth at a farmers market with a food tasting or a food tasting/information event at a partner site. From here I contacted Susanne Mickleson from the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union to determine how the last year's food tasting went and get some advisement. I had to wait until the next week to hear back. Still in planning...

Week 3 Blog (July 12 - July 18)

2010-07-31T12:04:00.000-07:00

Greetings again! All these weeks fly by so quickly and I've been out and about "doing" so much that I find it hard to sit down and write about it. However, I feel like I've gotten an idea of my direction for marketing and increasing business for the High Plains Food Coop (HPFC).
The beginning of Week 3 was spent in Atwood, KS at the Intern Retreat. At first I thought that it would interrupt my progress on my project but it actually helped me to understand the "big picture" of my goals.
At the Funders' Dinner (at the Aberdeen Steakhouse, see inset) I discussed the internship with the president of the CHS Foundation, William Nelson. The conversation helped me to realize that this internship will help not only urban communities but it will also help rural communities. To bridge the gap between the two I decided that either a farmer's market, booth at a farmer's market with a "food tasting", or a partnered event would really provide awareness and a marketing opportunity for the HPFC. Also, while away from home base we made a couple trips to rural grocery stores in Atwood, KS and Brewster, KS to discuss the challenges of their operations (see other inset pics).
When I returned to town I decided to explore my partnership options. I began researching possible businesses to partner with and host an event and assessing their locations in relation to the locations of the consumers. The first business I looked at is GrowHaus. The GrowHaus is a non-profit urban farm and market located at 47th & York St. in Denver. Their mission is to provide fresh, healthy food and teach neighborhood residents about gardening and healthy eating - which falls in alignment with bringing awareness about the HPFC. Good news is that Adam Brock, their contact, contacted the HPFC regarding partnering. The GrowHaus is a great potential partner because they are currently active and have various programs and events going on. Also, they have a greenhouse. Check them out on their website a http://www.thegrowhaus.com or on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/thegrowhaus. One drawback to a partnership would be their location. They are located in an inconvenient area to travel to just north of Park Hill/Stapleton (see Week 2 Blog) and don't have much space in front of their building to host possible events. Nevertheless, they are active enough that they are hosting events at other locations; they seem to be partnering well with other businesses. Hosting a Food tasting in conjunction with one of their events may be promising.
Another couple of potential partners is the Denver Urban Farm (http://www.theurbanfarm.org) a non-profit farm located on Stapleton that hosts growing and animal programs. I actually called it Feed Denver in my Week 2 Blog however Feed Denver:Urban Farms & Markets (http://www.feeddenver.com; http://www.facebook.com/feeddenver) (another potential partner) works in partnership with the Denver Urban Farm on Stapleton. Some positives about a potential partnership with the Urban Farm and/or is their location, directly on Stapleton, and both have multiple programs that empower people to sustain themselves and their communities. I have spoken to Lisa Rogers, the Executive Director of Feed Denver about a potential partnership.
At this point, I felt it was necessary to develop my marketing ideas more before partnering. My goal is to engage the people of Denver in healthier practices by teaching them and introducing them to accessible, affordable products and services such as the HPFC. Which kind of event did I feel would bring the most awareness to the HPFC ? In order to answer this question I needed a full understanding of HPFCs goals. I began emailing Chris Srmack of HPFC about the market, competition and economical aspects. As he gave me direction I also began the development of the advertising push. I identified the materials: brochures, facebook page and identified the locations of material distribution: Community areas: Recreation Centers, libraries, banks. In Week 4 Blog I will explain what kind of event I've decided upon and how I came to the decision. Stay tuned! Below is a video of our walk to the Williams Bros grocery store in Atwood, KS.

England

2010-07-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

So, the following is a press release (you have the privilege of special pictures) for the project Keshian and I have spent working on every possible moment in the last weeks. It was tons of work, tons of fun, and totally worth it! Although…we’re glad we don’t have to do it every day! This project has been one of my favorites as an intern, so read on to find out why!

On Tuesday, July 27, 2010, sixteen students gathered at the Campo Community Building for the 2010 Connecting Kids to Community day camp for fourth through ninth graders. It was a day filled with fun activities, door prizes, surprises, and a focus on leadership, entrepreneurship, and service.
Led by Ogallala Commons interns, Megan England and Keshian Hoeffner, the students began their day with some unique icebreaker games and a tour of Campo.To explain the picture below...We started the day with some new icebreakers...so of course Keshian and I had to show them how to play!
Throughout the tour, the students were asked to write down, then share ideas of things they love about Campo, and things they would like to see changed. Although everyone knew a lot about Campo, most learned something new. As one student said, “[Campo is] a little town, but there’s a lot of things people don’t know!” The picture below was taken during the tour while we discussed how important history is to our town. The group also learned about volunteerism from local community volunteers, EMT/Fire Chief LeRoy England and EMTs Esther England and Cherilyn England. Then everyone headed back to the Community Building to learn about Service-Learning and how young people can make a difference, too! Below is a photo of the students as they listen to the EMS volunteers.The morning ended with an introduction to the “Super-Secret Surprise Business Adventure”—a lemonade stand competition! Students were split into three teams; the Green Team, the Blue Team, and the Purple Team. Each team was given a table, table cloth, cooler, poster-board, markers, tape, and twenty-five dollars. With these items, the teams could do whatever they wished for their business.
Over a lunch of pizza, the students planned their businesses and created a shopping list. After lunch, all the students and sponsors loaded up on buses for a quick trip to the store in Boise City to buy supplies. The next hours were spent learning about running a business by creating one! The three teams did well in the competition, and the final results showed the Green Team taking the prize for most money raised, with the Blue team coming up second, and the Purple Team in third. The picture below is the winning lemonade business-owners. (Their sign says; "Lemonade- $0.50, and I'm a Cutie") The day ended with a reflection game, where students shared what they’d learned throughout the day and what they might do differently next time. Overall, the event was a great success, and the interns extend their thanks to Sponsors/Leaders Mrs. Nikki Johnson, Mrs. Sherrie Ownbey, Mrs. Vickie Baeza, and Bradly Johnson; Guest Speakers Miss Cherilyn England, Mrs. Esther England, and Mr. LeRoy England; and all the customers who visited the lemonade stands. A special thanks to Bird City, Kansas intern, Sydney Busse, for the many ideas and suggestions from a similar event she hosted in her hometown.

Week 8, Schwarz

2010-07-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

After 13 years, the Arnold Rialto Theatre has a first-run movie they’re going to show! Yes, it’s true, the city of Arnold will have a fully-functioning theater starting Friday, July 30th! “Grown Ups” is a family comedy starring Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, Kevin James, and David Spade, and produced through the Sony movie company.

I updated the news on the Rialto’s facebook page, and the positive response was amazing! People from Arnold and all of the surrounding areas, even patrons from out of state, were just gushing with praises… talk about achievement! The admission for students is $6 and adults, $7… So if any of you are interested in attending, come on down- who cares about distance anyways, right? :)
Besides the addition of the new movie, I’ve also been trained by my supervisor, Kristi Dvorak, on how to use the database program, FileMaker Pro. With this I’ve used the data I’ve collected from all the local media sources and put them into one file to make a ready-to-use contact sheet for PR and advertising purposes.- On a side note, through my advertising work with SORC, I’ve also been able to gain personal numbers for advertising reps as well, so that’s a good way to get a foot in the door.

It’s amazing all of the things I’ve learned, and the skills that I’ve been able to expand on just by being involved in the community and they’re communication branches. I now have the confidence of a professional, and that’s an amazing thing to feel at just 19 years old.

Kevin VonFeldt

2010-07-22T20:48:00.000-07:00

Hi again everyone! In my last post, I said I'd talk about the meeting in Atwood, so I guess that's what I'll do. =) It was a lot of fun meeting other interns and hearing all about what they're doing to help their own communities. I got a lot of new ideas for things to do here in Larned. Thanks to all the board members and sponsors that were there to tell more about Ogallala Commons and what we do. I really enjoyed listening to the speakers and all their great advice. For those of you that were there, you'd know I'm not very good at talking about myself or what I do so my blogs will be sort of short unfortunately. The only pictures I have now are a couple from a few weeks ago of my first interview I did and of Scarlett Olsen an I at a meeting with people at the Fort. Here's those pictures and have a good week with your internships!

Kevin VonFeldt

Week 2 (July 5-11) Blog...Finally

2010-07-21T21:28:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone. I must admit that I've been slacking on blogging but I'm on track now! I'd like to explain what I am doing once again to bring you back on track. I am interning with the High Plains Food Coop (HPFC) in marketing. The goal is to get the farmers food deeper into Denver and increase the number of orders coming from the area. The distribution area is so large that there are 8 pickup sites in the state.
My goal as marketing intern is to bring the urban communities together for a food tasting and Farmers Market to increase awareness and business for HPFC and to educate about farming, urban and rural. Urban farming has become a new hobby to a lot of Coloraadans. So I will talk to the managers at one of Denver's oldest urban farms, Feed Denver to see if they'd like to partner in the Farmer's Market. HPFC hosted a food tasting last August so I intend to get more information about that. I would like to do this in a common area or in areas in which there are few to no organic grocery stores (perhaps closer to downtown Denver or in or near a neighborhood called Park Hill just west of Stapleton). In the inset is a picture of Stapleton. The area used to be Denver's airport grounds up until late 90s then DIA was built. Park Hill is located just west (to the left in the picture) of Quebec Street and spans west for another (estimated) 5 miles or so. Neither Park Hill nor Stapleton have a fresh organic grocery store (although there is a Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and mid-sized chain grocery store called King Soopers - all of which sell some organic foods) and I know a couple of members of HPFC who live on Stapleton & enjoy ordering fresh organic food. Feed Denver is actually on Stapleton near the (center of the map) intersection of Havana St. and E Smith Road. The people living in these communities are my current target market because of their lack but I've found more people who are interested who live in other areas South of Stapleton.
Throughout week 2 I spent a lot of time interviewing people about their attitudes toward purchasing and eating organic foods.
One place I went to talk to people was the Denver Black Arts Festival (see inset) I found that many people younger than the age of 30 aren't very concerned with where their food comes from and whether it is organic or not. Then people that I talked to over the age of 30 seem to care more about their health and where their food comes from. After I sent some people to look at the website I also found that many people want to see food they're purchasing before they purchase it and do not want a high membership price to purchase. My challenge is with the HPFC to get the pictures of food up on the website and get the membership price to one that people accept.

England, Week

2010-07-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hey ya’ll! I’m back, and as always, I’ve had a busy week! I spent the first part of the week planning our “Connecting Kids and Community” day camp for 4th-9th graders in Campo with Keshian and our supervisor, Mrs. Nikki. We got some great ideas from another intern, Sydney Bussem who did a similar project. Our plan is to spend the day doing tons of activities and talking about how young people don’t have to wait to be entrepreneurs, leaders, and community volunteers. We also continued planning a Youth Engagement Day and planned the Campo Community Tour. On Wednesday, Mrs. Nikki, Sara, and I went on a community tour of Springfield with a county commissioner and another employee of the city. In the afternoon, we toured Campo along with Keshian. We visited several businesses, a local garden, and a local artist’s studio. That evening, we helped again at the Watermelon Pageant practice and then met up with supervisors Darryl and Julie along with interns Xavyr and Clay. It was neat learning about what they’re doing in their own communities that evening and the next morning at breakfast. The next day, I was at a conference (check out the photo on the right-that's the scenery I got to see! Pretty cool, huh?) and then I finished up my check list for the BCEDC website. (A relief, though there’s still a couple of errors I’m working on)!
So, to sum up the rambling, I spent a lot of the week planning for the coming week. As the days flew by, I found myself getting more and more excited about the Connecting Kids and Community camp. I hope that our hard work and planning encourage the youth of our community to get more involved in our community.
So…check back next week to see if our work paid off! Check out the design below (created by Keshian). It's a sneak peek of part of the free t-shirts we will be giving out at the camp!

Can finally post!

2010-07-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

Well after one computer problem after another and weeks of it being with a tech guy, we finally got it back! Even though it has been a while I'll go back to the beginning of my project. So I guess for my first post I'll start of with what I'm doing. I'm helping out at the Fort Larned National Historic Site by interviewing people that had a strong connection to the Fort when it used to be a ranch. A couple weeks go, I interviewed Phil Perez and his parents who all lived at the Fort. It was really interesting to hear all the stories they had about their experiences. After that, I interviewed Jim Goatcher, who was one of the first federal employees after the government bought Fort Larned back. He really had a lot of stories about transforming the fort back to its' original state. After the interviews I started transcribing them. I found out that it's a really long and hard process, especially when there's more than one person talking at the same time! It's getting late now, so either tomorrow if I have time or on Thursday I'll make another post talking about the meeting in Atwood. Until then, have fun with your internships!

Kevin VonFeldt

Schwarz, Week 7

2010-07-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

The last two or three weeks have moved so fast that they’ve almost been a blur…but definitely in a good way. After we had our open house down at the Theatre, the paper was flooded with nothing but praise, along with the town buzz going from mouth to mouth, passing from business to business.
At the board meeting on Tuesday, the members decided that the projected opening date for the Theatre would be July 30th. One of the concerns is the time it takes for the applications to get to all the movie companies, such as Disney, Sony, and Paramount. Within these applications you have to list the type of projection equipment you have, the estimate of movie-goers you anticipate each week, and much more before the company will agree to ship you the movie. So far we’ve heard back from Sony and Disney, so it’s nice to be making some head-way.

On another topic, I was able to present to my Economic Development board on Monday about what I’ve been doing in regards to the internship, what is going extremely well, and any recommendations I might have to making this an even more successful experience—the only thing I could come up with is the suggestion of hiring on a second intern for next summer. The board was really interested in what I had to say, and I felt like they took the second intern suggestion to heart. How exciting would that be?!
I finally got the Open House and Parade pictures. I thought I’d share them, they’re rather amusing.

2010-07-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

So it's been awhile since i have posted anything. Sorry i have been off to Cone Youth Camp then i had family things to do, but i am back and i have lots to share. The past couple of days i have been involved with touring some of the local areas. The first place i toured was my home town Campo, Colorado, Our first stop was Clarence's Truck Stop; there Shirley Jenkins gave us the story of how the they started and how the business works.Then we visited a local artist named Shalea Perkins and we seen some of the amazing sculptures that she has made.It was a well spent time then later we visited the newest eating facility in Campo, Ray's Smoke House where we enjoyed yummy pizza! Finally we went to Denise Smith's house where he talked to us about his garden and how he got started and what all went into it. We also visited the Local Campo Cafe and Cheryl Billings gave us a spill on how it is ran and how they began. It all was so interest! Each of the businesses that we visited were every helpful in teaching us how they began and just how much work goes into owning a business, it's not all fun and games. The next day i got the opportunity to go and visit Two Buttes and later Walsh. At Two Buttes i went to several different sites and learned the history of what was there. I saw the old buildings that were there and learned that Two Buttes was a lot bigger back in the day.After spending time in two Buttes it was time to venture on over to Walsh where i visited the Town Hall and met up with a lady named Fern and she talked about these blocks that are made out of compressed wheat. It was a great production. Then later i went over to the local grocery store and talked to a board member named Rick Miller, he gave me the story of the store and how the community is what keeps it going, it was an inspiring story. Finally it was time to head back home. It was a full day but it was not over yet, i came home and worked on my volunteer hours at the school. One of my volunteer projects is helping with the Watermelon Pageant. This years will be fun and exciting there are lots of little girls and the stage looks beautiful. I can't wait to see the show. So that was the extent of my past two days and i enjoyed every moment of it. It's fun learning about you surrounding areas and it's also important to know. Oh and one more thing... THANK YOU Darryl and Juli and the interns for coming and visiting our wonderful little town!!

Week 6, England

2010-07-13T08:16:00.000-07:00

Hello all you friends in cyber-space! Thanks for stopping by the Ogallala Intern Blog 2!

This week, I was gone for five days to a camp, so what I accomplished, I had to cram into two days. Those two days were…well…crammed!

I wrapped up the Baca County Economic Development Commission Website and am now just doing some touch-ups and fixing all those annoying ‘little’ problems. =) I also am trying to finish collecting all the County alumni lists and business information I have received and get them in one place for the next BCEDC intern that comes along behind me.

For my Campo internship this week, Keshian and I prepared and gave an update at our City Council meeting. The update included several pictures of things we’ve done and we also showed of the Town of Campo website. We concluded our presentation by putting our blog on the big screen and showing our City Council how it works. We also got in some volunteer time helping with practice for the 2010 Melon Miss Pageant that will take place this Saturday. The pageant is for local elementary-aged girls and the royalty are recognized at the county fair/pageant and the Watermelon Festival in August. Needless to say, there is a lot of work involved in crowd control, decorating, and making sure the technology is running smoothly.

So there you have it! Check back next week to learn more about what it’s like to be a community intern in the beautiful Baca County, Colorado!

Above: Keshian and I at the City Council Meeting

Above: Me in the sound booth for the Watermelon Pageant practice.

Week 6, Schwarz

2010-07-06T22:21:00.001-07:00

This last week was nothing short than a dream come true. I wish that I had the open house pictures to show you, but I don’t have them yet—I’ll post them in a later blog.
As most of you know, Friday was the open house and shower for the Rialto. Also, that night, there was a live performance by a very talented musician. The turnout was mind blowing. From three in the afternoon, until about six, it ranged from people coming in and poking around, to kids plopping down in the plush seats to watch Toy Story 2 on the brand new 22’x9’ screen that was installed in the last weeks.
People brought items ranging from clocks, to money, to toilet paper, and of course everything in between. My point being that this past weekend, the theatre felt nothing but love.
It was amazing to see the looks on peoples faces when they would pull back the curtains, and see the state of the art graphics flashing across the screen. If a person was to rewind twelve years ago, and all you have seen (if you could make your way in that far,) is a decaying pile of rubble, and a couple broken-up boards along the side of the deteriorating walls.
From praises, to congratulations, to suggestions, to a couple of tears… the members of the Rialto heard it all. It’s exactly those things that we heard that make the theatre keep going. After all, it was a dream that started it in the first place. Now, it seems as though even when the dream expands, the ability to reach it grows too.

Week 5, England

2010-07-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well hello there! Thanks for checking out the latest update to my part of the Ogallala Intern Blog! I must say, this has been an eventful week! I started the week as a film intern (see my previous blog) and ended it as a cashier /fireman-EMT’s daughter/model for an auction! I spent most of my time this week at the local Fire House helping to set up for the annual Firemen’s Benefit Auction and QRT (Quick Response Team) sale. That was part of my community service as an intern so I’ll save the rest of that for my later community service blog, (sorry, I know the suspense is killing you, and for good reason! It was exciting).

So, the rest of my week was spent "in the office" doing things like catching up on emails, making some phone calls, blogging =) , writing press releases, and trying to decide how to wrap up the BCEDC half of my internship. I think my biggest accomplishment of the week (other than the Auction) was the fact that I am almost entirely finished updating the BCEDC website that I’ll be publishing soon! After I finish the last few hours of my BCEDC internship, I’ll be spending all my time as an intern for Campo. So I’m on to new things soon, though my time as a BCEDC intern has been challenging, fun, and exciting—three things I love!

Next week’s blog will not be on time due to the fact that I will be gone…again. =) This time I’ll be heading to Nebraska for a week of youth camp and a little R&R by a lake! Talk to you all soon!

Above: That's me, 'modeling' some of the jewelry we sold at the Benefit Auction.

Above: A look at the 'miles of merchandise' we spent the week going through and laying out.

Week 4, Emma Cress

2010-07-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed during my internship is getting to work on a new brochure for the Wallace County Foundation. I worked on my high school’s yearbook staff for three years. I really enjoyed it, and it’s been fun to get back into the world of colors, pictures, and designs again. The Foundation has never really had anything created to publicize what they do and how it works, which partly explains why there are still quite a few people that don’t even know it exists. My favorite thing about this project has been that it required me to do some photography of one of the most beautiful pieces of God’s earth (namely Wallace County…if you didn’t catch my hint). I photographed sunsets, playgrounds, our local theatre, the Ft. Wallace Museum, and a few horses that I randomly drove past one afternoon and decided would make a nice cover picture. The brochure basically details some of the projects the Foundation has been a part of and lists a few ideas for areas in the county that it would like to support a project in. The Foundation is still sort of in the start up phase of its development, but has thus far helped fund the renovations of our local movie theatre building, established multiple scholarships, and started a children’s fund for a variety of needs that a local child might have. That’s all for now!

Week 3, Emma Cress

2010-07-01T21:56:00.001-07:00

This is me at my workstation located in the accounting office owned by a Foundation board member.

My monster stacks of letters waiting for some TLC.... :)

So one of the major projects I have worked on recently for the Wallace County Foundation is preparing their annual fundraising letter to send out later this year. While printing, folding, and stuffing 1,761 letters may not make for a very exciting blog entry, I do want to share with ya’ll what I’ve been learning about donations and different ways people give. I had always sort of looked at donating as one of those things where people just handed over money because they were feeling generous and they didn’t really expect to get anything out of it. First of all, any gifts to a non-profit organization are usually tax-deductible. In other words, you can give it to your community or you can give it to your state. More interesting, however, is that any part of someone’s estate can be set up to go to a charitable organization—life insurance, trusts, property. So when we talk about raising money, it’s a present and future endeavor. And the money is there. Transfer of wealth—grandparent to parent to child etc.—usually sends money out of the local area. If community foundations can capture even a small percentage, they can make it go a long way. It’s just a matter of educating people on how easy giving can be and how far their money can go in making a difference for the community they love.

Week 5, Schwarz (Links)

2010-06-30T18:53:00.000-07:00

Link to the Rialto's community website: http://arnoldne.org/pages/rialto-theater

Link to the Rialto's facebook webpage: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Arnold-Rialto-Theater/298753141921?ref=ts

Week 5, Schwarz

2010-06-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

Hey guys. Sorry about the blog being so late, this Friday is the Rialto’s open house, so it seems as though things are moving along at a rate too hard to keep up.
Last week I was able to update the Arnold website , which featured the Rialto Theatres business page. In order to do that, I had to do a little digging around into the history of the theatre, and also gather some old photos- which was actually pretty fun to look at.
The first picture is the theatres lobby in 1940, when it was up and running in its “prime”, so to speak. The Theater was closed down in 1979 and privately purchased in 1997. Now, finally, in 2010, the restoration is complete, and that’s what these 3 photo’s cover.
I’ve also recently taken over the Rialto’s facebook page this week- if you have facebook, you can “like” us. :) I have attached the link as well . Along with the open house, we’re the honorary float during the Fourth of July parade in Arnold, and are also having a live musical performance by Alex Stewart on Friday night!
I always quickly threw together a notice about the Community Cleaning Day for the Rialto so everyone would know that their help would be appreciated.
The Rialto is so close to opening I can almost smell it!

Week 3 K.Hoeffner

2010-06-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Meg & I in the CryingRoom at a theater

Megan & I at the canyons

Meg & me at the Lamar theater

Hi everyone it’s me again Kesh, wow it’s been busy! So Megan and I have been working hard to get the town of Campo website up and running, it looks great so far. We have went around the town taking different snap shots to put on the website and also to use for blogging. That’s the main thing that we having been working on I also did the flyer's for the QRT/Firemen’s Auction and will be in the future working on the Watermelon Festivals flyer's and ads. For the town. So the past two days I have been involved in a PSA (Public Service Announcement) filming. It has been a blast, on Monday I went to Eads Colorado and we did a filming at the Plains Movie Theater then later on in the day we went to Lamar Colorado and filmed at the theater as well. It was amazing to see how the filming crew worked. Then on Tuesday we all went out to the canyons west of Campo Colorado and filmed, it was pretty hot but fun! For several of the filming I was able to take the behind the scenes pictures, it was interesting to learn how to take the perfect still shot or how to deal with the sun and the shadows. The filming crew encouraged everyone to take up a career that had to do with filming and show productions. It kind of made me rethink what I wanted to do in the future! Over all it has been an amazing and exciting week here in Campo. Oh and if you can the QRT/Firemen’s Auction is July 3rd, this Saturday. Come and enjoy the community and good food.

Me helping the film crew

Week 4, England

2010-06-29T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well folks, I don’t know where to begin! It’s been an incredible week, but I’ll try to keep this novel relatively short!

On Thursday, Keshian and I toured our own town, stopping on nearly every block to take a picture of something. We later sorted them and put the best ones on the Campo’s website.

Above: Touring my hometown! Elevation? 4,339ft above sea level.

On Friday, Sara and I, along with our supervisors (Economic Development members) headed to Pritchett to host a business appreciation for the Pritchett Café. We gave tickets away to win a $25.00 gift card to the Café or adjoining gift shop. Then, we put on our “waitress” hats and washed dishes! You can see pictures and an article on page 4 of our newspaper.

Then I started recruiting film extras.

That’s right! Keshian and I are interns for a professional film crew who are making commercials about tourism and historic sites in Southeast Colorado! The process started several months ago, and all the Campo/Baca County interns and several other students were involved in deciding what places were to be filmed and which production company to hire. This week was film shoot number one!

Monday, we headed to Eads. In the morning, we learned how to run lighting, how to roll up extension cords =), and also about some of the filming technology they use. The afternoon was spent in Lamar, recruiting 50 complete strangers to be extras in our film.

Above: Speaking with the director of the films during the Eads shoot.

Myself, Keshian, and another film intern traipsed up and down Main Street, going into every business begging complete strangers to come stand in front of a movie theater pretending they were getting tickets. It was amusing, but effective!

Above: Getting all the extras signed in before the Lamar Theater shoot starts!

We got home just in time to slide in to a planning meeting for our town’s summer “Watermelon Festival”! (It’s a sort of old fashioned county fair/July 4th celebration in August).

Tuesday, we rounded up local film extras to head down to the canyons near Campo, where we’d be shooting day two of commercials. The canyons are part of the Comanche National Grassland and are a great place to camp, see ancient rock drawings, or just to hang out with friends. We spent all afternoon picnicking, playing Frisbee, fishing, hiking, and getting soaked at a swimming hole. I can't tell you what a great experience it was!

Above: I got to see the footage as it was shot from a 'helicopter' camera.

We finished at the canyon film shoot in time for me to head back home and help to set up for the annual Quick Response Team/Fire Department Auction on Saturday. My parents are EMTs and my dad is the fire chief, so I will be helping with that this coming week as part of my internship community volunteering!

Okay, I’m over word count, and I’m also exhausted, so I’ll stop. Please ask questions if you want to know more!!!

Week 3, England

2010-06-22T19:33:00.000-07:00

So, as you can see, my blog is a bit late this week, but I promise I have a great excuse! I have spent the last four days at an amazing leadership conference in the beautiful mountains of the central Rockies! I am not usually one for camps and the like, but the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) Conference was wonderful! We spent our time doing physical challenges, team-building challenges, and talking about ethics and what it means to be a true leader. We discussed things like Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ “Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times” and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. We learned about different types of leaders and different leadership strategies. It was a great experience that I will never forget and many of the things I learned apply directly to my work as an intern for Ogallala Commons! (Photo: The Beautiful Colorado Rockies)

While RYLA did take up most of my week, the earlier parts (aka Monday-Thursday) were filled with things like working on the BCEDC website, learning how to edit the Town of Campo Website, and I also began working on creating a county-wide high school alumni list. That turned out to be a bit disappointing because a few of the larger schools in the area don’t have lists that are really accessible, but I’m still working on it! =)

On Monday, I went to our City Council meeting to talk about Keshian’s and my internship and I received a letter from a former member of the community who has not lived in Campo since the 1930s! She and her sisters are returning to the area for a short trip to learn about their roots and would like someone to show them around! I was so excited! History and Tourism—two of the things I love to talk about!

When I wasn't working on those projects, I was helping find houses with beds for over 70 people involved in Ozark Christian College's Highest Praise Choir Tour. The concert

stopped in Campo to perform. It was an interesting challenge, but I loved it and the concert was

great! (Photo: Myself and the three girls my family and I hosted from Highest Praise.)

Week 2 K.Hoeffner

2010-06-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

Hey there everyone, it’s me again, Kesh. So Campo is still the same for now, but things may start to change as Megan and I start to work on our projects for the community. We are hoping that everything goes smoothly and works out. Megan and I are going to meet together along with Nikki Johnson and work on he Town of Campo’s Website that was started by a previous Intern. We are going to build off of what is already existing. We are planning on adding other things to the website about our town. The website will be featuring information about of City Council members, The town policemen, the businesses that are in Campo, and the Campo school, also all of the Churches that are within the town. If you have any other ideas for our website feel free to email me at hoeffner.k2012@gmail.com I think that the website will be a great thing because there are lots of people that I think will visit the town’s website. Also this week we will be talking about the different projects around the community that we are going to work on. Megan and I will be volunteering at the QRT (Quick Response Team) and Firemen’s action that the town hosts every year. So there’s a little insight on some of the many things we I am going to be involved in.Sorry for no photos being available to look at.

Week 4, Schwarz

2010-06-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Week number four was as busy as ever. With the 4th of July festivities sneaking up, along with SORC (the road race) the next month, there is still plenty to do.
The Sandhills Open Road Challenge is a national road race that has taken place in Arnold for the last ten years- this August marking its tenth anniversary. People from all over the country flock to Arnold to race their tuned and tweaked Vipers and Corvettes.

This little town of 600 , miraculously multiplies to easily three times its size during SORC, but somehow never loses its coveted, “small-town” hospitality.
My role in SORC, like many others, have been helping with many different aspects. From selling merchandise for the volleyball team in high school, to helping serve the racers for simple community service. But this year, my involvement is a little more detailed than a couple of T-shirts.

I have been mailing out letters to land-owners all over the area to see if they would be willing to let spectators and/or medical staff wait on their property until the race is over. I am also in charge of getting into contact with local newspapers so that we can get some advertisement for SORC, as well.
When it gets closer to time, I imagine that I’ll probably be kind of the “go-to” girl, that’s running around like a chicken with her head cut off. It might not sound fun, but I’m looking forward to it. 

Week 2 1/2, Emma Cress

2010-06-20T20:38:00.001-07:00

Dear all, for this blog I’m going to go into a little more detail on the second public speaking opportunity I’ve had. I’m pretty sure I mentioned it in the last blog. Wallace County was having an accreditation visit from members of an organization called “Public Square Communities.” This organization was founded by Terry Woodbury and previously known as Kansas Communities. It is an organization that focuses on developing community leaders from four different sectors of a “public square community”: Government, Education, Business, and Human Services. The way a “public square community” model works is these different individuals in the community focus on specific projects and goals needed in their communities and form what are termed “action teams” to accomplish these projects. These accredited communities are in a state of constant evaluation of their health. Some of my county’s original goals included improving positive communication and investing in local youth. My internship with OC is somewhat of a result of the second goal. So at lunch I spoke about OC, its mission, and how my internship relates to my county’s goals of youth investment and positive communication. Other community advancements sparked by these focuses include intentionally using our local newspaper to support positive awareness about community events and accomplishment, the creation of a county website, and establishing the “Kids First” fund to help area children in need. We did an informational tour of the county throughout the day, and were then given feedback by the accreditation team members. We visited the Ft. Wallace Museum, Weskan Firehouse, and Sharon Springs South Park. My pictures are of the accreditation team at the park just before lunch and the Ft. Wallace Museum, our starting point in the morning and ending point at the finish of the visit.

Weel 1

2010-06-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

Greetings to all! My name is Blenda Cooper and I am from beautiful Colorado. I am a recreational athlete and enjoy all forms of recreation, sports, and fitness. I am a recent graduate with a BS in Dietetics from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. I also hold a BS in Exercise Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (so I know of the red you bleed Lexi! LOL) I work as an independent contract Personal Trainer, Health, Wellness, and Nutrition Specialist. Also, I have just started a non-profit exercise and nutrition incorporation for families called Family Wellness Programming Inc., in which we plan and execute exercise and nutrition education, training, and goal setting programs for entire families. Our current focus is childhood obesity and nutrition education and sustainability for communities. I am so excited to participate in this internship because it will allow me to bring greater awareness of other opportunities to obtain healthy food to the families I work with in my community. Left, find me resting on rock side during a hike at beautiful Chattaqua park in Boulder, Colorado. Center, enjoying a great game of Frisbee at my high school reunion. Right, saying hello in mid-ride from the side of a mountain trail at Vail Resort.

Week 1 K.Hoeffner

2010-06-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

The PowerPoint we used

Street shot of the town.

Hi, it’s me again; Kesh, just thought I would update you on what I have been doing so far. Monday June 14, 2010, Megan England and myself presented a PowerPoint presentation to the City Council showing them our ideas and plans for the four weeks that we are interns for the town. In the PowerPoint we talked to them about Ogallala Commons and what it is then we talked to them about what we will be doing as interns and what benefits we receive. We decided the main benefit that we will receive from this experience is the feeling of accomplishment and the knowing that we helped our community. Other things that we went over were some of the summer projects we are going to try and work on in our short time period. We are going to work on Community Clean-Up Day which is where everyone in the community that is able to help will come out and help to clean up the community. We also told the City Council that we want to help them with the Patriotic Park that they will be working on in the future and we would like to start the Adopt-A-Block program again. It is where members of the community adopt a block in town and it is their responsibility to keep it clean and well cut. Those are just some of the many projects that I will be involved in. I can’t wait to get started. If you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at hoeffner.k2012@gmail.com

England, Week 2

2010-06-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

Before I start in on Week Two, I guess I should clear one thing up. I am an eight-week intern, but I’m splitting the eight weeks between two entities. The first, of course, is the Baca County Economic Development Commission (BCEDC). The second four weeks of my internship, I’ll be working as an intern for the Town of Campo. I get to spend those eight weeks with the other Baca County intern, Sara, and the other Campo intern, Keshian.

Now back to Week Two!

I think my favorite day of the week, was the day I spent with my supervisor, Laneha Everett, going to three or four different meetings and working with her in the office. We attended a Chamber of Commerce meeting, a meeting with the founder of a Renewable energy company, and the BCEDC board meeting. As weird as it may sound, I enjoy most meetings, you can learn a lot if you just sit and listen! =)

We also came up with some great ideas for the BCEDC website and started planning business appreciation days for our local hospital district and a local Café/Gift Shop. For the hospital, I made a flyer (see above) and for the Cafe, I wrote a press release that should appear in the county newspaper as well as my town's paper on page 4. The rest of the week, I worked on the Business directory (which I'll be posting on the web, possibly) and the website.

So, it was a pretty busy week, but I had a lot of fun learning more about the community I live in!

Feel free to ask me any questions; I’ll do my best to answer them!

I love journalism, and I write frequently for the local paper. Every now and then, I get a call from a local person who has an idea for an article...this week I got a great one! A man with a horse-drawn 'stage coach' was parked in town for the night! I jumped at the opportunity, and you can see the story in our local paper, (page 1)

Week 3, Schwarz

2010-06-13T15:16:00.001-07:00

One of my main focuses right now for this internship is working with the Rialto Theatre in Arnold. My grandma talks about remembering working at the concession table during the showings of the old movies when she was in jr. high. Sadly, shortly after that, it was closed down.

Through the hustle and bustle of everyday life, the quaint little theater laid dormant until it was privately purchased in 1997. After that, slowly but surely repairs were made, the building was cleaned, and seats and other necessities were purchased.

Through donations, grants, and a little bit of out-of-pocket money, the theater is now in working condition. Several plays, concerts, and meetings have all used this facility for social gatherings. Now, a state-of-the-art movie projector and screen have been purchased, and the Rialto is ready to become a movie theater once again.

The Grand Opening was scheduled to be July, 2nd, during all of the 4th of July festival activities. Unfortunately, the board felt as though there were too many things to be done in that short of time period, so they are having an Open House instead… Leaving the Grand Opening to be continued.

I have been working closely with the Board on PR articles for local papers and an advertising plan to help finance the theater, since advertising will be one of their main sources of income… it’s a very exciting process!

Week 2, Emma Cress

2010-06-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

Hello again from Wallace County! I’m blogging about my first two weeks since we introduced ourselves in the first post. I’ve learned so much, but I know I still have much to learn. For the first part of my internship I am reporting to the Wallace Co. Foundation. It’s a non-profit organization that addresses various needs in our county. Right now we are in the initial building phase, which means a lot of promotional work—writing articles, fundraising letters, and creating a new brochure. I’ve had some fun getting to snap photos of my county for promotional material. Even if the rest of the world disagrees, I still say western Kansas is beautiful. I’ve also been working on some details for our county-wide Christmas celebration. It seems like such a longs ways off, but it will be here before we know it. My office space is in a local accounting firm owned by one of my three supervisors who is also a board member for the Wallace Co. Foundation. Some of the things the foundation is involved in is facilitating funding for local projects and overseeing the distribution of local endowment scholarships. In my first two weeks, I’ve already had the opportunity to speak twice. My first Thursday public speaking opportunity was at rotary meeting. Their anticipated speaker had come down with some highly contagious bug, so 20 minutes before the meeting was to start one of my other supervisors comes to find me at my desk and asks if I’ll fill in. (Talk about improvised speaking.) This past Thursday I had another opportunity, but we’ll save that for next time.

This is John Foster, our EDA director and one of my supervisors, introducing me to the Rotary club.

An old depot that was in my town, but has now been restored and moved to the Ft. Wallace Museum.

Week 1, Emma Cress

2010-06-10T20:41:00.001-07:00

Hello all. I’m Emma Cress, the intern for beautiful Wallace County. On the left is me getting ready to go boogie boarding when I was in Texas with my senior class a couple years ago. Unfortunately, it's not something I get to do really often since it requires an ocean. Right below it is a picture of me (in red), my sister, cousin, aunt and friend right before a 5K run this spring to support women's health. Some other things I love are the country, playing volleyball, riding horses, reading, running, big families, baking, donating blood, playing my flute, dancing, and a whole lot of other things. I’m a junior at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa. It’s a small (1200) Christian school that’s become a place full of people and things that I really enjoy, even though I have to drive 600 miles to get there. Apparently “Orange” has something to do with being Dutch, and believe me, they are very Dutch. There are wooden shoes and windmills and tulips all over the place. My major is Athletic Training (kind of like sports medicine) and I have a minor in Spanish. I absolutely love them both. Graduate school for physical therapy may be in the future for me, but we’ll just have to see what happens. I have five brothers and sisters (and 2 brothers-in-law). My two younger brothers and my baby (she’s 10 now) sister still live in Weskan, KS with my parents. Oh, and we can’t forget my nephew, Wishbone. Yes, he looks like the dog from the children’s TV series, except for the circle around the eye. I’m still waiting on human nieces and nephews. I was blessed to grow up in Weskan, a wonderful community of loving and supportive people. I’ve always felt at home here and I want to see my community and county stay healthy and unified. So that’s why I’m back for the summer and I’m really looking forward to giving back to my little slice of western Kansas.

Keshian Hoeffner Introduction

2010-06-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

Me playing the bass

Me and the YAC group

Hello everyone, my name is Keshian Hoeffner. I am from a small town called Campo, Colorado. I am 16 years old and a junior at Campo High School. I am the oldest of two children I have a younger sister named Kidryn, oh and of course, my mom and dad, Waylon and Sheryl. I believe that it is very important to be a part of your school so I try to be involved in everything. Sports is a huge part of my life, I spend a great majority of my time playing sports. I take volleyball and basketball. When I am not participating in sports I am working on projects with a group called YAC (Youth Advisory Council) The latest thing that we are working on is trying to preserve our area’s history. It’s very exciting! I also for many years participated in 4H, I showed sheep. That was quite an experience. I became involved with the intern job because it seemed to me that it was another great way to become more involved with my community, my community means a lot to me because I have been here my whole life and I have seen the towns ups and downs. I am excited about this job and can not wait to get started.

Week 1, England

2010-06-07T14:54:00.000-07:00

I started my first summer 2010 internship with a trip to Atwood for the Ogallala Commons Intern Orientation. It was amazing! Not only did I meet some neat people, I got to go bowling for the first time in my life! I’m no professional, but I love learning new things!

I was inspired by all the people we met and was caught by a common theme all of us interns and supervisors noticed. Nearly every person we spoke to talked about the fact that making a life in small towns isn’t easy, but with determination, passion, and a little know-how, absolutely anything is possible! Thus began my second summer journey as an intern.

My first week as an intern was a whirlwind—literally! On my very first day actually working, our local tornado sirens went off. Myself and several family members are weather spotters so we headed out to watch the clouds. While we watched, we saw numerous funnel clouds forming all around us and the Emergency vehicles had to be evacuated from town. As we drove a safe distance from away, this is what I watched out of my back window. And yes, I got this shot on my personal camera! Thankfully, it missed the town by just a few miles, traveling mainly through open fields, but it was still too close for comfort!

The rest of my working time was spent on my first project; the County Business Directory. Part of my job this summer is creating a list of all the businesses in my county and getting their contact information as well as a brief description. Then I’ll be asking all the businesses if they would like to be part of a mailing list for business information such as grant opportunities and workshops.
So there you have it, my first week condensed into a few paragraphs!

(Above)Intern Lesson #1: Talking and Typing is a very important category of Multi-Tasking!

Week 2, Schwarz

2010-06-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

On the first week on the job, I’ve learned three very important things. One, do not underestimate the power of the internet, for research, internet, etc… Two, when people ask what you’re doing for the summer, say a community intern, rather than an aid for the city Economic Development group . It saves time, and you having to answer a lot of questions. Last, but not least, e-mail is your friend, after all, in a small town, in the middle of nowhere, it’s hard sometimes to get into contact with the people that you need to conference with.

After getting back from the OC orientation in Atwood, I came back with a lot more things than I had went there with. For example, now I actually had a grasp on what exactly Ogallala Commons was, and what the organization was working to achieve. Most importantly, by the end, I was motivated and inspired. If you told me to pick one thing that I learned the most about the Conference, it would be that in small towns, to get anything up and running is a struggle… and more often than not, unfortunately, ideas and small towns businesses fail. BUT I learned that in order to succeed, it takes more heart and more passion than any amount of money donated. I learned that believing in something with all of your heart will, in the end, get you the farthest.

Week 1, Schwarz

2010-06-06T21:44:00.000-07:00

Hey guys!

My name is Lexi Schwarz and I’m a college sophomore at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, with a major in Advertising and a minor in Marketing. So of course, since I’m a Husker, one of my hobbies is to go to the football games… and getting student ticket pricing is a major plus.

I have two brothers, Eamon and Chase… I’m the oldest, but also the shortest, I’ve learned to deal with it, and it doesn’t bother me anymore. Sports are a huge part of my life, I’m addicted to volleyball, but I also love reading and writing.

I’m addicted to three things, Grey’s Anatomy, quotes, and Chapstick. I love to travel and read. One of my goals is to take the EuroRail across Europe, sometime in the near future. My favorite author is Jodi Picoult, I’ve read every book she’s written. I’m also a cell phone buff, I have an unhealthy obsession of researching phones that I should get, even if I have 12 months before my contracts up. I should really work for Verizon, but that’s a whole other story. I’m also tickled pink about this internship.

Since I come from a small town of 600, jobs are usually very hard to come by, especially for young women, so when my E.D. director told me about this job, I was in heaven. My main focus this summer is to help our local theater get up and running in time for their Grand Opening on July 3^rd. Its been a very long process, but through their diligence, it’s almost complete.

That’s me in a nutshell, as random as it is, it fits me to a T.

Megan England, Introduction

2010-06-06T16:09:00.000-07:00

Hello, I'm Megan and I live in a small town on the Great Plains in Colorado. I am a high school student and I've attended the same pre-K through 12th grade school my entire life. Our total student population is less than 100 so when I say small, that's what I'm talking about!

I am an avid reader of pretty much everything and I enjoy writing. After high school, I would like to major in Journalism. In my spare time, I like to do a little photography and when I get the chance, I love to chase summer storms—as long as I’m not too close! I love basketball and volleyball and play both sports competitively. I’m involved in student council and I am a member of the Youth Advisory Council at my school, a small group of student leaders who do numerous educational community service-projects in our school and community (it’s a program called “Service-Learning”).

I love small towns and the country way of life and that’s one of the reasons I became involved with Service-Learning and Ogallala Commons. I want to see my community and others like it thrive for generations to come!

Top: That's me showing some school pride in my dad's letter jacket.
Bottom: That's me doing one of the things I love--working on a ranch!

-Megan

Welcome Interns!

2010-06-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hello Emma, Megan, Kesha, Lexi and Blenda!

I hope you are all excited to begin your summer internships! It was a pleasure meeting most of you last week in Atwood!

This will be your blog site for the summer! I will be supervising your blog entries and leaving comments on your posts. Even though most of you have already started your internships and are probably ready to write your first 200 word entry; for your first post, let's introduce ourselves to each other. (See my example below). Include two pictures, one picture of yourself and the other showing something you enjoy doing. When you finish your post, email your family, friends and community supervisors so they can become familiar with how to access the blog and leave comments.

I'm really looking forward to working with you all this summer!

My name is Simone Cahoj. I was born and raised in Atwood, KS and currently live and attend school in Lawrence, KS. I will receive my undergraduate degree in May 2011 from the University of Kansas in Business Management and Leadership Studies with a concentration in Entrepreneurship. This August I will be moving to Washington DC to work for Kansas Representative Jerry Moran. Since I was a sophomore in high school, I've been doing work with economic development. This work and passion for my rural community lead to the creation of the Ogallala Commons community-based internships in 2007. I've been working both as an intern and as intern coordinator since 2007 and I really love what I do! Things I really enjoy doing are reading, taking photos, hiking and riding horses. This summer, in addition to working with you all, I will be taking summer classes back in Lawrence and hopefully doing some traveling. I hope to spend as much time outdoors as possible!

Here I am! This picture was taken on my trip to Italy in December!

And as I mentioned I love riding horses! Notice the awesome Ogallala Commons t-shirt! :)