Thanks to Kathy Holmes and the Oregon delegation for hosting an outstanding Regional Conference. The barbeques were fabulous, the tours interesting, and the scenery breath taking. Thanks to the all the members for your hard work on committees and your dedication to the profession. Plans are already underway for next year’s regional conference in Hawaii.

As summer approaches I hope you take time to reflect on your accomplishments. Take the time to rejuvenate before you dive into another year of stock shows, county fairs, and FFA summer activities. I look forward to meeting with you in Wyoming, Washington, and Utah for your annual summer professional conferences.

Legislation is still and will be an ongoing and important part of our profession. Please take the time to contact your representative and senators to express your concerns. If they do not hear from our supporters and us, they will never know of our passion and concerns. The NAAE, Council, and FFA are working on a joint legislative effort, but it still comes down to you and I on a grass roots lever to contact our legislators. The NAAE web page has the Capitol Advantage program that makes it easy, please try it.

Plans are underway for a great National Convention in Orlando, Florida. Look for additional information and draft schedule and pre-registration form in this issue or on the NAAE web page. Make your plans early and get it into your travel budget.

The board will be selecting a representative to serve on the Council in July. If you are interested please send me a letter of interest and a resume’. If you have any concern please call, write, or email anytime.

Allan Sulser
(435) 654-0640
Email: allan.sulser@m.wasatch.k12.ut.us.

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Gosh, where did the school year go? This was a very fast but productive school year. It is said, "time files when you are having fun."

It was great to see all of you and your families at our Region II Conference in Lawton, Oklahoma. David Dorrell and the "Oklahoma Crew" went all out to host a tremendous Region II Conference. The professionalism and fellowship were outstanding. Thanks, Mr. Dorrell and the Oklahoma Agricultural Education Teachers Association for all of your hard work and tremendous planning. If you did not or could not attend, let me encourage you to plan to attend next year, as the Colorado teachers have been planning for two years to host a great conference. As a younger teacher, I missed these great family events. Bring your family and make a vacation and professional meeting in Colorado.

It is not too early to start thinking about our NAAE Convention in Orlando, Florida. We have a great conference hotel for professional meetings. We were at this facility a few years ago and the convention was outstanding.

State presidents and leaders let me remind you to prepare Professional State Award applications for your states. All of you have outstanding programs and events within your states and need to be recognized. We also need to work hard at keeping our membership up in each state. In these times of budget crunches and financial stress, we need each and every one of us to help keep our profession proud and strong. We must all ask ourselves, "am I doing my part?"

I plan to visit the Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas Conferences this summer. Without a doubt, the best part of the Regional Vice President's job is meeting all the membership and making new friends. I cherish the great friendships and camaraderie I have made not only in Region II but also nationwide.

I hope that all of you have a great summer and come back ready to "set the world on fire." ( Within your profession of course !) As always, if I can be of any help to any of you, please do not hesitate to write, call or e-mail me.

Larry Long
(580) 225-1222
Email: long@itlnet.net.

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Greetings, Region III. I will start this article with a big thank you to the Nebraska Association for their fine work with organizing and operating our 2003 Regional Conference. The tours, meals, meetings, and social events were exceptional. Outstanding job everyone!

Thanks also to those professionals who attended the conference and worked diligently to improve not only themselves but also the NAAE. Your hard work with the committee process helps provide your board with ideas and suggestions to improve the services provided to the membership and other ideas to help advance agricultural education. The board must now consider these ideas and do our best to implement them when we meet in July. When the board meets, we will consider all the committee business and determine how to best deal with each item. The board must consider the ideas while being mindful our current staff of employees, budget, etc. Sometimes we are unable to implement all the ideas for a variety of reasons, but we will address each of the committee ideas and do our best to implement as many as possible within our operating structure. The committee process is an important mechanism to advance our profession and organization and your efforts are greatly appreciated.

The announcement of the Regional winners for the different award areas will be out soon. Congratulations in advance to our winners and I know you will be outstanding leaders and representatives for our Region during the National Conference in Orlando. Speaking of Orlando, I hope many of you are making plans to attend the National Conference in Orlando, Florida December 9-13. The conference will be held at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando. A full program is planned with great speakers, tours, and opportunities for professional growth. Special programming has been established for our new Dodge “Teachers Turn the Key” winners. Please make an all out effort to attend. As always, if there is anything I can do to help you or your state, don’t hesitate to contact me. Paul Larson, (920) 788-7945 work, or home (920) 730-3820, or e-mail palarson@athenet.net.

Paul Larson
(920) 788-7945
Email: palarson@athenet.net

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Greetings from the Heartland! Summer break is finally here with no bells ringing to tell us to do something different. It’s been an excellent year in Region IV has membership and participation continues to increase. My position continues to be a learning experience as the NAAE grows and strives to meet our member’s desires.

Most of what I learned this year, however, did not come from inservices, workshops or board meetings, but rather from my son who just turned seven months. These are some of the things that I learned:

*Cleaning manure out of barns in no way prepares you from changing a dirty diaper

*Toilet paper rolls make a large pile on the floor when a baby unravels them.

*Being late to any event is now ok as long as it involves holding onto your son for a few more minutes.

*Trying to type with a 6 month old baby around is imposaoj;lrn;ljtoa;sirjg;aj.

*The amount of sleep one gets at a national NAAE convention is more than one gets during teething season.

Please enjoy your summer and the time with your families and colleagues as you attend state and regional conferences. Levi and I will see you in Champaign at the Region IV Conference and in Orlando this December.

Please return frequently to the Region IV web site at http://users.anet.com/~hofers97/
naae/region4page.htm for updates.

Jeff Maierhofer
(815) 357-8761, ext. 115,
Email: jeff@jmaierhofer.com.

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Greetings from Region V. It is hard to believe that we are in mid summer already and things are on the move as usual. Much has happened since our last report. Our winter board meeting was held in February at Lexington, KY, we had a good meeting and had the opportunity to tour the facilities that our headquarters will be housed in, it was very nice. From there the board traveled to Indianapolis, IN and participated in the state leaders workshop. It was good to see many of you there. The meetings were informative and I think each of us had a lot of information to carry back to our states. Plans for our Region V conference are going well, the MS delegation is putting together a lot of activities I think we all will enjoy.

Dennis Deaton our Region V alternate vice president has put together a Region V web page and it is now on line, it looks great. The address for the home page is lhttp://aaaeonline.com/regionV/index.html . If you have any information, pictures, or announcements you would like to put on the web page about your state contact Dennis at dgdeaton@yahoo.com he will be glad to get those on the site.

Please follow up on dues and remember that June 30 is the cut off date for dues counting toward delegate counts for NAAE Conference in Orlando, FL. Our NAAE applications for Region V looked pretty good but we still had room for improvement, I wish each of you that applied the best of luck.

I hope each and every one of you have a fantastic summer and if there is anything I can do to help please let me know.

Lee J. James
(662) 285-3205
Email: leejjames@yahoo.com

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The Region VI Leadership Conference that was held at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, PA., was an excellent example of how collaboration can create synergy that produces incredible results for all!! I want to thank everyone on the outstanding conference planning committee for coordinating the conference for PAAE, NAAE Region VI, and the PA Young Farmer Association. A special thank you, to Dr. James Diamond for the extraordinary “taste” of hospitality he provided. We look forward to the 2004 conference in Virginia.

Congratulations to each of the Region VI award winners. We all look forward to having the opportunity to recognize them in person in Orlando at the National Convention. I encourage each of you to begin to make arrangements to attend the NAAE National Convention Dec 9 - 13. The speakers and program look excellent and this year we will have the first class of Teacher Turn the Key award winners. It will be an excellent time to receive the most current updates on the status of Federal funding for Career and Technical Education.

In the mean time you CAN make a difference by keeping your representatives informed about your program and the positive impacts it has on this lives of young people in your community. I challenge each of you visit the NAAE website and click the link that provides direct connection to your representatives. It’s easy, It’s Important, and It’s NEEDED! Thanks for all your efforts to influence our future.

Have a great year and I look forward to seeing many of you at the National FFA Convention. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance in supporting your state association activities.

Terry Hughes
(518) 255-5538
Email: hughestr@cobleskill.edu.

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