Eight brothers attended NALC in Florida this year. The farm tours were very interesting and the brothers who were able to attend learned a lot! For those of us who were unable to make it, we certainly enjoyed all the snapchat updates and interesting ag facts learned! It was so much fun bonding with brothers from other chapters during the scheduled events and outside of these events. We were also fortunate enough to meet up with an alumni from the NC Chapter and go out to dinner to catch up. Between the farm tours, the dinners and everything in between, the NC Chapter learned a lot and the friends that we made are certainly going to last a lifetime.
As NALC came to an end in Florida, we were getting busy with Agriculture Awareness Week back in Raleigh! The Brothers, alumni, and other student organizations on campus worked together to get tables, booths and pens set up for everything. Late in the afternoon on Sunday we had they dairy calf steers, the beef cattle cow/calf pair, the alpacas, the pigs, and the sheep delivered to the Brickyard. We were even fortunate enough to have an Ag Simulator on campus this year. We host various events throughout the week including Ag Olympics, Ag Forum, Milking Contest and Kiss the Pig Contest. Ag Olympics allow participants to battle it out in agricultural related challenges such riding toy tractors, hay bale toss and more! Our topic for Ag Forum this year was Antibiotic/Hormone Use in Farm Animals. Our forum invites professionals and experts on the topic to speak about their experiences and opens the floor to any questions that the audience may have. After Ag Forum, the NC Chapter hosts an Alumni Dinner at the Beef Education Unit. For our Milking Contest we had two of NC State's mounted police officers compete against one another to see who could milk the most in two minutes. Finally, Kiss the Pig is one of our annual fundraisers. Each participant has a mason jar with their name on it and people donate their spare change throughout the week; whichever participant receives the most money in donations kisses one of the pigs on the Brickyard before Agriculture Awareness Week Ends. All the funds raised this year from the Kiss the Pig Contest and our Silent Auction were donated to the Jimmy V Foundation. Ag Awareness Week was a huge success this year; we can't wait to see what next year will bring!