A community is more than just a group of people living in a specific area. A community is a group of people we rely on when times are tough. It could be our friends, family and neighbors who are there for us when we need love, support and encouragement. A community is a group of people that care about one another enough to create love and support for one another. Community is a sense of support around you from a group of people who are welcoming, supportive and loving of you. Community to me is a sense of belonging and an organization or team as well. Everyone has a goal of trying to better themselves. Not only personally and individually, but as a group as well. Volunteering for canned food drives helps my community grow stronger. When we deliver the food to the apartments for the elderly, you can tell that the people are very grateful for what we have brought them. Being a volunteer and picking up trash along roads also improves my community. It makes our community look more attractive with all the trash being gone. My passion is animals. Through our Future Farmers of America Chapter, we go to elementary and middle schools to teach children the proper care of animals. We even take in small animals for them to see and touch. It helps the children learn more when they also have a visual. This helps our community to interact and help the future generation learn how to take care of their pets. I was also able to volunteer as a veterinary assistant at a local livestock market. This was a remarkable opportunity for me to learn about my future career and to help all of those animals receive their vaccinations to keep them healthy. I’ve always been told that it takes a village to raise a family. In this case, it takes a community to raise kind and helpful people. I hope to continue volunteering for projects once I start college. I want to continue helping people and making better communities. To prepare for my goals, I have studied hard throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I have maintained a 4.0 or above through all of it which took hard work to achieve. I took college courses while in high school to help cut down my college time, that way I can pursue my career sooner. The sooner I can help start saving animals, the better. I will continue to study hard in college so I can receive the best training and learn all the information I need to know to be an awesome Veterinary Technician. This scholarship would benefit me by helping me pay for college expenses. Thank you for your consideration.

A community is more than just a group of people living in a specific area. A community is a group of people we rely on when times are tough. It could be our friends, family and neighbors who are there for us when we need love, support and encouragement. A community is a group of people that care about one another enough to create love and support for one another. Community is a sense of support around you from a group of people who are welcoming, supportive and loving of you. Community to me is a sense of belonging and an organization or team as well. Everyone has a goal of trying to better themselves. Not only personally and individually, but as a group as well. Volunteering for canned food drives helps my community grow stronger. When we deliver the food to the apartments for the elderly, you can tell that the people are very grateful for what we have brought them. Being a volunteer and picking up trash along roads also improves my community. It makes our community look more attractive with all the trash being gone. My passion is animals. Through our Future Farmers of America Chapter, we go to elementary and middle schools to teach children the proper care of animals. We even take in small animals for them to see and touch. It helps the children learn more when they also have a visual. This helps our community to interact and help the future generation learn how to take care of their pets. I was also able to volunteer as a veterinary assistant at a local livestock market. This was a remarkable opportunity for me to learn about my future career and to help all of those animals receive their vaccinations to keep them healthy. I’ve always been told that it takes a village to raise a family. In this case, it takes a community to raise kind and helpful people. I hope to continue volunteering for projects once I start college. I want to continue helping people and making better communities. To prepare for my goals, I have studied hard throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I have maintained a 4.0 or above through all of it which took hard work to achieve. I took college courses while in high school to help cut down my college time, that way I can pursue my career sooner. The sooner I can help start saving animals, the better. I will continue to study hard in college so I can receive the best training and learn all the information I need to know to be an awesome Veterinary Technician. This scholarship would benefit me by helping me pay for college expenses. Thank you for your consideration.

Agriculture has always played a big role in my life. Once I was in third grade, and old enough to participate, I joined the local 4-H club. In my first couple of years, I would buy one goat to show. After I realized how much I enjoyed working with goats, I decided to start breeding them and selling them to other exhibitors. Having my goat herd taught me to be responsible and learn how to solve problems. Once I got into high school, I joined Future Farmers of America (FFA). This is where I met my FFA Advisor, Agriculture Teacher and role model, Mr. Hays. He believed in me and helped me find my passion, which was working with animals in agriculture. I kept growing my goat herd and was awarded a chapter proficiency award for meat goat production. Covid took a year and a half away from me, but I was able to join a horse judging team in my junior year. Mr. Hays encouraged me to compete. After placing second in the state, my love for competitions began. I was a part of the Horse Evaluation, Hippology, Vet Science, Parliamentary Procedure, Land Judging, Homesite Evaluation, Forestry, and Agribusiness teams. We were the state-winning team in forestry and agribusiness which allows us to compete nationally this fall. Without the support of Mr. Hays, I would not have been able to accomplish this. He helped me overcome my shyness and raised my confidence level. Being involved with agriculture helped me decide what I wanted to be in life. At the start of my junior year, I was dead set on being a veterinarian technician. Breeding goats and learning how to handle life-and-death situations when it came to kidding time helped influence my decision. There were no vets around, so I had to do everything myself. I loved being around livestock and it made me realize that I wanted to be able to help livestock for the rest of my life. When I realized this year that it would be my last year in FFA, I thought about being an agriculture education teacher that way I could influence kids as much as Mr. Hays influenced me. He opened new doors for me and showed me the importance of agriculture. I thought about my future and although I would miss FFA greatly, I knew my real passion was to be able to work with livestock. Throughout the years, agriculture has been the most important thing to me thanks to Mr. Hays. From being out on the farm to being in the woods practicing for a competition, agriculture has always been a part of my life. It taught me to be patient. I had to learn to wait for the right time to plant seeds or the right time to breed goats. Aside from being patient, it taught me responsibility. The animals depended solely on me to feed them and care for them. So, as you can tell, agriculture is a major part of my life, and it will continue to be as I grow older and work with large animals. I plan to become a large animal veterinary technician and hopefully join a practice that will travel to farms. For this, I am extremely grateful for the support and encouragement from Mr. Hays.

A community is more than just a group of people living in a specific area. A community is a group of people we rely on when times are tough. It could be our friends, family and neighbors who are there for us when we need love, support and encouragement. A community is a group of people that care about one another enough to create love and support for one another. Community is a sense of support around you from a group of people who are welcoming, supportive and loving of you. Community to me is a sense of belonging and an organization or team as well. Everyone has a goal of trying to better themselves. Not only personally and individually, but as a group as well. Volunteering for canned food drives helps my community grow stronger. When we deliver the food to the apartments for the elderly, you can tell that the people are very grateful for what we have brought them. Being a volunteer and picking up trash along roads also improves my community. It makes our community look more attractive with all the trash being gone. My passion is animals. Through our Future Farmers of America Chapter, we go to elementary and middle schools to teach children the proper care of animals. We even take in small animals for them to see and touch. It helps the children learn more when they also have a visual. This helps our community to interact and help the future generation learn how to take care of their pets. I was also able to volunteer as a veterinary assistant at a local livestock market. This was a remarkable opportunity for me to learn about my future career and to help all of those animals receive their vaccinations to keep them healthy. I’ve always been told that it takes a village to raise a family. In this case, it takes a community to raise kind and helpful people. I hope to continue volunteering for projects once I start college. I want to continue helping people and making better communities. To prepare for my goals, I have studied hard throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I have maintained a 4.0 or above through all of it which took hard work to achieve. I took college courses while in high school to help cut down my college time, that way I can pursue my career sooner. The sooner I can help start saving animals, the better. I will continue to study hard in college so I can receive the best training and learn all the information I need to know to be an awesome Veterinary Technician. This scholarship would benefit me by helping me pay for college expenses. Thank you for your consideration.

Since I was younger, I was always known to have a soft spot for animals. Everyone would call me the animal whisperer. The quality that I value most in myself is that I am very passionate about helping animals. Growing up, I was always the person taking in strays and giving them a loving home. We had cats that would be dropped off and I would make sure they were healthy before finding them a forever home. Some were feral cats that I trapped and got fixed. While they were recovering, I worked on taming them. I tamed three feral cats and they turned out to be the sweetest ones. I would end up getting attached to some of them and they were able to stay with us until their final days. Both dogs that I have were rescues that would have gone to the shelter had I not volunteered to take them. They have been amazing dogs but certain characteristics they had made them not wanted by others. This quality will help me in my life journey by assisting me in my career. I have decided to go to college to be a veterinary technician that way I can continue to help animals. I have had goats for the past seven years and would struggle to find a vet that would see them or assist them if they needed help. I found myself having to learn everything through YouTube videos and luckily we only lost one baby. It opened my eyes to the struggles that all other farmers face. We live in a more rural state that has many farms but only has a couple of vets willing to help the farmers with their animals. The vets that we do have available expect the farmers to be able to load up the animals and take them to them. In case of an emergency, loading up a 1,000-pound cow trying to calve is a lot different than loading up a 10-pound dog. By the time the farmer gets a trailer hooked up and the cow loaded, it would be too late for the calf. This makes it hard for farmers to keep their animals healthy and make a profit from them. Getting my degree in veterinary technology will allow me to work with a traveling veterinarian that can travel to all the farms in the area, therefore helping the farmers and their animals.

Agriculture has always played a big role in my life. Once I was in third grade, and old enough to participate, I joined the local 4-H club. In my first couple of years, I would buy one goat to show. After I realized how much I enjoyed working with goats, I decided to start breeding them and selling them to other exhibitors. Having my goat herd taught me to be responsible and learn how to solve problems. Once I got into high school, I joined Future Farmers of America (FFA). This is where I met my FFA Advisor and Agriculture Teacher, Mr. Hays. He believed in me and helped me find my passion, which was working with animals in agriculture. I kept growing my goat herd and was awarded a chapter proficiency award for meat goat production. Covid took a year and a half away from me, but I was able to join a horse judging team in my junior year. Mr. Hays encouraged me to compete. After placing second in the state, my love for competitions began. I was a part of the Horse Evaluation, Hippology, Vet Science, Parliamentary Procedure, Land Judging, Homesite Evaluation, Forestry, and Agribusiness teams. We were the state-winning team in forestry and agribusiness which allows us to compete nationally this fall. Without the support of Mr. Hays, I would not have been able to accomplish this. He helped me overcome my shyness and raised my confidence level. Being involved with agriculture helped me decide what I wanted to be in life. At the start of my junior year, I was dead set on being a veterinarian technician. Breeding goats and learning how to handle life-and-death situations when it came to kidding time helped influence my decision. There were no vets around, so I had to do everything myself. I loved being around livestock and it made me realize that I wanted to be able to help livestock for the rest of my life. When I realized this year that it would be my last year in FFA, I thought about being an agriculture education teacher that way I could influence kids as much as Mr. Hays influenced me. He opened new doors for me and showed me the importance of agriculture. I thought about my future and although I would miss FFA greatly, I knew my real passion was to be able to work with livestock. Throughout the years, agriculture has been the most important thing to me thanks to Mr. Hays. From being out on the farm to being in the woods practicing for a competition, agriculture has always been a part of my life. It taught me to be patient. I had to learn to wait for the right time to plant seeds or the right time to breed goats. Aside from being patient, it taught me responsibility. The animals depended solely on me to feed them and care for them. So, as you can tell, agriculture is a major part of my life, and it will continue to be as I grow older and work with large animals. I plan to become a large animal veterinary technician and hopefully join a practice that will travel to farms. For this, I am extremely grateful for the support and encouragement from Mr. Hays.

Ever since I was in elementary school, the thing that mattered most to me was being successful. I never liked to lose. Since I started school, I have worked my hardest at succeeding. I have maintained a 4.0 and would become sad after any test that I would get below an A on. This motivated me to always study hard and let me be on top of my work. I would be able to be a few days to a week ahead of the rest of my class because I wanted to make sure it was turned in on time to get a good grade. When I started high school, I joined FFA. It became the main thing in my life. I focused a lot on it but still kept my grades up. Covid set me two years behind in being actively involved in FFA, but in junior year I was able to start joining teams and competing. In my junior year alone, I competed in six different competitions and then this year I have competed in five so far. It was difficult to attend every practice and barely see my house, but when I'd hear our names being called first and second-place winners, all the tiring nights of practice were worth it. The competitions that we lost by only a few points were the hardest ones. I don’t like losing and hearing that you lost by a couple of points makes you feel like all the nights you spent studying were a waste of time. I would make myself get past it and it would just make me study even harder for the next competition. So far, I have been a part of the state-winning forestry and farm business management teams. We get to represent West Virginia next fall at the 96th National FFA Convention in Indiana. As I prepare to leave home and go to college, I will continue studying every night and staying on top of my work. My goal is to maintain all A’s in my courses throughout my four years of college. I want to be able to be proud of my grades and succeed in college. Doing my best in college will help me get a better job after I graduate. I will be getting my degree as a large animal veterinarian technician at Morehead State University. Originally, I wanted to become a large animal veterinarian that way I could operate a traveling vet service, but with the cost and time of vet school, I will first be getting my bachelors as a veterinary technician and may go back at a later time. I want to be successful in my career and be able to save many animals' lives throughout my years of working. Helping animals is a goal I have had since I was young and would watch animal planet. I have always had a soft spot for animals and do not like seeing them hurt and suffering. Since there are not any large animal veterinarians around this area, I am hoping to get my degree and come back to my hometown.

A community is more than just a group of people living in a specific area. A community is a group of people we rely on when times are tough. It could be our friends, family and neighbors who are there for us when we need love, support and encouragement. A community is a group of people that care about one another enough to create love and support for one another. Community is a sense of support around you from a group of people who are welcoming, supportive and loving of you. Community to me is a sense of belonging and an organization or team as well. Everyone has a goal of trying to better themselves. Not only personally and individually, but as a group as well. Volunteering for canned food drives helps my community grow stronger. When we deliver the food to the apartments for the elderly, you can tell that the people are very grateful for what we have brought them. Being a volunteer and picking up trash along roads also improves my community. It makes our community look more attractive with all the trash being gone. My passion is animals. Through our Future Farmers of America Chapter, we go to elementary and middle schools to teach children the proper care of animals. We even take in small animals for them to see and touch. It helps the children learn more when they also have a visual. This helps our community to interact and help the future generation learn how to take care of their pets. I was also able to volunteer as a veterinary assistant at a local livestock market. This was a remarkable opportunity for me to learn about my future career and to help all of those animals receive their vaccinations to keep them healthy. I’ve always been told that it takes a village to raise a family. In this case, it takes a community to raise kind and helpful people. I hope to continue volunteering for projects once I start college. I want to continue helping people and making better communities. To prepare for my goals, I have studied hard throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I have maintained a 4.0 or above through all of it which took hard work to achieve. I took college courses while in high school to help cut down my college time, that way I can pursue my career sooner. The sooner I can help start saving animals, the better. I will continue to study hard in college so I can receive the best training and learn all the information I need to know to be an awesome Veterinary Technician. This scholarship would benefit me by helping me pay for college expenses. Thank you for your consideration.

I need to manage my finances as a student so that I can become a financially responsible adult. There are several financial goals that I aim to strive toward. As everyone knows, college is incredibly expensive. In today’s world, everything is expensive with inflation costs. My main financial goal is to come out of college debt free (or with very little debt). My parents work hard enough to provide for me, so I don’t want college to be another source of financial stress. Because of this, I want to leave college debt free. My plan to decrease my financial debt is to apply for scholarships and grants and also to find a part-time job to help with expenses. I will be attending an out-of-state college, so I would also like to start saving and adding money to my emergency fund and setting a budget for myself. It is very important to me to live within my means and spend as little as I can so that I will continue doing so when I am older. To achieve this goal, I plan to reduce my cost of living at college as much as possible and track my spending so that I know exactly where my money is going. It would be very easy for me to go to convenience stores and buy junk food. I plan to go to a grocery store and purchase my snacks and drinks to keep in my dorm room to avoid unnecessary purchases. One of my goals was to get a credit card. I achieved this goal about a month ago and received my first credit card. Building credit is important for students because it will help them in the future. A credit card promotes financial responsibility and will allow me to begin building my credit. I plan to use the card for gas and emergencies only. I don't want to overspend to where I am unable to pay off the balance. If I can maintain good credit, I will receive better loans in the future and will learn to pay off my debt. It will also give me a sense of security to cover any emergency expenses that may occur if I would need additional income. I plan to pay off the credit card balance each month, to keep an excellent credit history. In conclusion, I hope to become a financially responsible student which will in turn make me a financially responsible adult.

Since I was younger, I was always known to have a soft spot for animals. Everyone would call me the animal whisperer. The quality that I value most in myself is that I am very passionate about helping animals. Growing up, I was always the person taking in strays and giving them a loving home. Cats would be dropped off and I would make sure they were healthy before finding them a forever home. Some were feral cats that I trapped and got spayed or neutered. While they were recovering, I worked on taming them. I tamed three feral cats and they turned out to be the sweetest ones. I would end up getting attached to some of them and they were able to stay with us until their final days. Both dogs that I have were rescues that would have gone to the shelter had I not volunteered to take them. They have been amazing dogs but certain characteristics have made them not wanted by others. This quality will help me in my life journey by assisting me in my career. I have decided to go to college to be a veterinary technician that way I can continue to help animals. I have had goats for the past seven years and would struggle to find a vet that would see them or assist them if they needed help. I found myself having to learn everything through YouTube videos and luckily we only lost one baby. It opened my eyes to the struggles that all other farmers face. We live in a more rural state that has many farms but only has a couple of vets willing to help the farmers with their animals. The vets that we do have expect farmers to be able to load up the animals and take the animal to them. In case of an emergency, loading up a 1,000-pound cow trying to calve is a lot different than loading up a 10-pound dog. By the time the farmer gets a trailer hooked up and the cow loaded, it would be too late for the calf. This makes it hard for farmers to keep their animals healthy and make a profit from them. Getting my degree in veterinary technology will allow me to work with a traveling veterinarian that can travel to all the farms in the area, therefore helping the farmers and their animals.