People Helping People

Last night I went to a benefit concert sponsored by Chilis restaurant and St. Jude Children's Research hospital. It was at the Wormy Dog and featured Cody Canada (Cross Canadian Ragweed), Charlie Robison and Seth James. It was a cool event and I purchased some sweet items at the silent auction. Chilis does a great job supporting the work, research and outreach that St. Jude provides to all children who hear have to hear those 3 dreaded words, "you have cancer". Keep in mind that once a child is diagnosed with cancer St. Jude takes care of everything from travel to treatment at NO charge to the family.

Today you have an easy way to help. Go to a local Chilis restaurant and just eat! 100% of the money made today will be donated to St. Jude!!!

http://www.chilis.com/EN/Pages/home.aspx

www.stjude.org

If you can't make it to Chilis and want to help you can simply text "HOPE" to 90999. This will donate $5 to St. Jude. You can do this anytime!

Nevada FBLA/DECA Advisor academy!

Spent the weekend in Las Vegas, NV with 70 local advisors from all over Nevada and great times were had by all. I did an opening keynote and 2 breakout sessions. The day was structured around two main things; 1) getting advisors excited about the upcoming year and 2) tips for facilitation and debriefing workshops.

I shared a thought with the teachers that I wanted to pass along to you... "You have a direct impact on a child's future just by showing up each day and physically being present." The main question is this; who wants to just show up. I would hope that each day and in every situation we don't just show up but show up on purpose and with a purpose. For all those advisors who wanted to know how to get some great music to play in their programs follow these instructions:

1. Download and install iTunes.
2. Once inside iTunes, go to the iTunes store.
3. Click on Music along the top. (where it says music, movies, TV show, etc...)
4. Scroll to the very bottom of the page and you will see some links under "more to explore." Click on iMix.
5. In the search field type in "yournextspeaker." No spaces.
6. This will get you both a fast and slow play list.

Enjoy and remember to keep your music and material Clean, Powerful and Positive.

Your first step is their first hope.

My DJ company, "Your Choice Entertainment" is excited to be working with St. Jude Research Hospital. Check out the link...

Your first step is their first hope.

O-H....I-O!!!

I just returned from a trip to Columbus, OH where I had the privilege of working with 500 amazing FFA members at the 2010 Ohio C.O.L.T (Chapter Officer Leadership Training) conference. I had an amazing time and the Ohio FFA organization www.ohioffa.org should be commended for the caliber of students they have. On Tuesday evening I spent a couple hours with the State officer team helping with presentations and facilitation training. Wednesday morning was 3 full hours of fun and growth with chapter officers and members from all over the state.

Want to thank the 15 Ohio state officers on a job well done. They were fully committed to being involved and interacting with the students. This was my first time working with the Ohio FFA association and gave me a chance to work with a legend in the FFA world, Dr. Steve Gratz. I have known Dr. Gratz at a distance since 2002 and having the chance to work with him directly showed me exactly why he is one of the most respected men in the nation when it comes to FFA and the development of our youth.

Special thanks and congratulations to Katy Endsley! She was my contact for the event and was not able to attend as she and her husband welcomed their second child into the world! Congrats, Katy...

Off to Vegas for 20 hour round trip to work with Nevada FBLA and DECA advisors!!!

Float Trip 2010

Spent the weekend with 10 of my closest friends (The Trojans, the Jeffreys, the Deharts, Gaylon, Matt, Jordan and Howard) floating the Illinois river. Had a great time and made some memories.

On the way down I got to stop in and see my brother and his children and have some great food at "Captains Table" on the river in Webbers Falls. My brother made a deal with my nephews and told them he would buy them a trampoline if they learned the FFA Creed. Connor has the first line done and he is only in the second grade!

Thanks to Howard for planning the trip to float the river. I am blessed to have such great friends and family. Wish we could have had a few more friends join us. Maybe next time...

The picture is of my niece, Macy holding one of her new baby pigs.


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Location:Tracys Terrace,Edmond,United States

Thanks from the military.

Below is a note I received from Sgt. Ryan Ellis from the 1-45th ADT deployed in Afghanistan. Thanks to everyone...

To everyone who was involved:

Thank you from the 1-45th Oklahoma Agribusiness Development Team for the Happy Grams from Alumni Camp. It meant so much for our team to receive letters from Oklahoma FFA members as most of our team are former members. It was such a pleasure to open a box and have 95 Happy Grams, from members all over the state, staring back at us. We are very thankful for your thoughts and time to honor us during such a busy time for OK FFA. Thank you for the coordination with Dr. Shelly Sitton to arrange for them to be shipped over with more school supplies. It is hard to express the appreciation we have for receiving letters from home and it means even more when they come from children. On a more personal note, I was very overwhelmed to see the Happy Grams. It made me feel like I was back at home and back with students, not to mention that I personally know so many of the people involved. I was so proud (as the ag teacher of the group) to show the letters to everyone else and tell them that our state FFA association was thinking about us. I look forward to meeting with some of you when I return, to share stories and pictures from our agriculture mission here. Thanks again to all of you for your support and we will see you in a couple of months when we return home. Please let the members know that we appreciate their thoughts !

SGT Ryan Ellis

Ag Education/Extension SME

1-45th OK ADT

Deployed

Man Trip 2010

Just returned from a great trip with my dad and brother to St. Louis and had an absolute blast. My dad and brother have been fans of the cardinals their whole lives and my brother and I have been to a few games but this trip was special as it was my dads first time.

Aside from the game and amazing seats (thanks dad) we toured the Brewery and we made time to walk by the arch and check out some local hot spots. I highly recommend Jakes Steaks! The highlight was just spending some time making a memory with the people you love.

It was great to see the Cardinals break their slump and win 2 of the 3 games!





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Location:St. Louis, MO