North Carolina State University
Animal Science Club
NCSU Box 7621
Raleigh, NC 27695-7621
The officers and advisors of the North Carolina
State University Chapter met during July to begin planning for the fall
activities, and to send letters out about the club to incoming freshmen. The
first club event, was to try to recruit new members during a departmental Pizza
party, right before classes started for the Fall 2002 Freshmen Class. The first
club meeting was held a few days later, and there were over 150 students
present. The Student/Faculty Mixer, an annual cookout that the club sponsors,
was held the following week in Pullen Park and a $50 gift certificate to the
NCSU Bookstore was given out to a “new” club member.
In October, club members worked long hours during the ten days of the North
Carolina State Fair. The club is very active during the fair, with several
different activities. The club offers its members the chance to show goats, as
well as beef and dairy cattle, provides the manpower for the NC Cattlemen’s
Association Steak Sandwich Booth, serves as ringmasters during the youth
livestock shows, as well as runs its own “Milking Booth”. The club also raised
funds by having people pay $1.00 to milk a cow at the State Fair, where
participants could have their pictures taken while milking and could purchase a
T-shirt. Thousands of people stopped by to milk the cow!
In December, the club hosted its annual Quadrathlon competition, in which
students compete in teams for a chance to go on to the Regional Competition
later on in the year. We had several students participate in the two-day event,
even though the weather was very icy! We also adopted, for the second year, a
“family” for the Christmas holidays and ~25 club members took the goodies to the
needy family and many more helped to provide gifts for the family.
In January, several club members traveled to Washington DC for the annual Block
and Bridle convention, where we enjoyed meeting students from all over the
country. The agricultural tours and seminars made a lasting impression on the
members who attended, and the club was able to bring home two national awards
for some of the projects it had submitted to National’s, 1st place
for the Chapter Activities Report and 4th Place for the Published
Yearbook Award.
In February and March, the club hosted several
guest speakers including the Bovine Club at the Vet School during different
meetings. The first guest speaker was from Brown’s of Carolina and talked about
the swine industry in our state. The second speaker was a club member who
talked about the student exchange program that he participated in last year.
The Vet students came and discussed admissions and other vet-school related
topics and Dr. Sam Pardue spoke to the club about an overseas agriculture tour
that was taking place this summer. We also had a club member present a program
on Resolution-50 to the club, Res.-50 was a movement in the Student Senate to
provide students who didn’t believe in using animal cadavers for dissection labs
other alternatives (i.e.: models & computer generated graphics). (Note the
resolution failed later on in the Semester in the Senate).
In March, Alpha Zeta, the agriculture honor fraternity on campus hosted its
annual Agriculture Awareness Week. The club provided an interactive milking
display for the student body as well as held our annual BBQ sale. This allowed
the club, and AZ, to show the campus how important agriculture is to our
everyday lives.
April proved to be a busy time for the club. On
the 4th-5th, the club held it’s soon to be annual Club Day
Livestock Show and Alumni Reunion. Although “Club Day” is an annual event, we
are hoping to continue to hold an Alumni event following the big shows in
celebration of all the years that have gone by. This year’s reunion was a huge
success with over 300 people attending; several from the class of 1951 were the
“oldest” alumni in attendance, and the furthest away came in from Arkansas just
for the reunion! The cost of the event was covered by local businesses and by
donations from alumni. For the “reunion”, we had a live bluegrass band,
Carolina Road (of which an alumnus is a part of), a BBQ dinner and farm tours of
the University Field Labs the following day.
Farm Animal Days, which was held April 9th-11th, provided
the club with the opportunity to promote animal agriculture to Wake County youth
in a positive fashion. The event, which had over 1,500
attendees, was brought back this year, after not being held for the last
2 years due to the threat of Foot & Mouth Disease. This is a joint venture with
the Animal Science Club, the Poultry Science Club, and the Departments of Animal
Science, Poultry Science, and Food Science. In addition, the North Carolina
Farm Bureau provides funding to make the event possible.
The annual Awards Banquet was held April 29th
at the Jane S. McKimmon Center, with students, relatives, and faculty in
attendance. The excellent meal was followed by a slide show depicting the club's
activities for the year and by the presentation of awards.
The faculty
advisors for the 2002/03 year were Dr. Jeannette A. Moore, Dr. C. Scott Whisnant,
and Mr. Dale C. Miller. Club officers for the fall/spring semesters were:
President, Aaron Maye/Laura Pugh; President-Elect, Laura Pugh/Josh Brown; Senior
Activities Chair, Josh Brown/Amy Shepherd; Junior Activities Director, Amy
Shepherd/Adam McGarity; Senior Editor, Kelly Brannan/Ginny Adams; Junior Editor,
Ginny Adams/Penny Page; Secretary, Erin Boahn/Elizabeth English; Treasurer,
Sarah Alexander; Parliamentarian, Marsha McDowell; Agri-Life Council
Representatives, Summer Stroud and Travis Leonard/Jamie Smith and Nicole
Matthew; Rewards System Chair, Elizabeth English/Summer Stroud.
