National Beef Ambassador 2015

Well, to say the least, it's been a very eventful week!  I've had a lot of personal drama, but that was overcome by this last weekend.  I was able to represent Texas at the National Beef Ambassador Competition in Denver, Colorado.  We were able to compete in a variety of events, including Issues Response, Consumer Promotions, Media Interview and Education Outreach.  Each of these events required competitors to promote beef in a variety of ways and combat consumer concerns.

The 30 Junior and Senior Competitors

Waiting at our table in the holding room

The competition lasted from Friday afternoon to Saturday evening.  On Friday, we performed in Issues Response, which required us to read an anti-beef article and respond to it in 250 words.  The next day, Saturday, we were kept in a holding room for 9 hours while we waited for our various competitions!  To say the least, we got pretty close!  I truly enjoyed this time getting to talk to people from various states and learn about their cattle operations.  The competitions that day were consumer promotion, where we were confronted with various types of consumers and had to speak to them about concerns, media interview where we were interviewed about common misconceptions regarding beef and education outreach where we presented our outreach program.

Saturday evening, we had the awards banquet.  After a nail biting dinner and judges comments, they finally announced the winners!  I was able to claim the top competitor title in Media interview and then was named to the 2015 National Team, along with Kalyn McKibben - Oklahoma, Will Pohlman - Arkansas, Rachel Purdy - Wyoming, and Demi Snider - Ohio.  We spent several hours taking pictures, being interviewed and speaking with various people.

Your 2015 National Beef Ambassador Team! L-R, Kalyn McKibben, Rachel Purdy,
Will Pohlman, Alicia Smith, Demi Snider

Awards Dinner

This year, we will have to opportunity to represent U.S. Beef and visit with industry leaders, in addition to making appearance at various national events to promote beef.  This is definitely the opportunity of a life time!

Our first #beefselfie as a team!