Thompson is FFA Star in Ag Placement
By Jean Caspers-Simmet
simmet@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 05/06/2010 9:25 AM
E-mail article | Print version
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa —Chelsie Thompson is just a college sophomore, but she's already has her dream job. She's assistant program director and volunteer coordinator at Hartman Reserve Nature Center in Cedar Falls.
"My job is being outside and educating people," she said. "I'm living my dream job."
Thompson, 20, was honored as Iowa FFA Star in Ag Placement at the recent FFA Leadership Conference in Des Moines.
She is an earth science major at the University of Northern Iowa and wants to teach environmental science to high school students.
Thompson has always been interested in the outdoors. Her father, Jason Thompson, and her grandfather, Gary Thompson, had her competing in archery tournaments when she was 5. They always took her along hunting.
Thompson moved with her mother and stepfather Charla and Matt Byram from Waterloo to near Cedar Bend Park north of Waverly when she was in fourth grade.
"It was a great place to grow up in the country," she said.
When Thompson started at Waverly-Shell Rock High School, she thought FFA was for farm kids and she never considered joining. She took natural resource conservation, horticulture and plant science classes from ag teacher and FFA advisor David Carlson. After a lot of convincing on his part, Thompson joined FFA at the start of her junior year.
"I wish I would have joined sooner," she said.
For her Supervised Agricultural Experience, Thompson worked at Hobsons Dairy Queen and at Crawdaddy Outdoors in Waverly where she helped set up displays and also did river and backpacking trips. She interned with Bremer County Conservation and also worked for Chickasaw County Conservation. She belonged to the environmental club and venture crew in high school.
As a high school sophomore she started a trap shooting team, and between her sophomore and junior years she represented Iowa on the muzzle loading team at the National 4-H Shooting Sports Competition in Rapid City, S.D. She placed third and her team placed 5th. She raised $4,000 to attend the contest, and with the money that was left she started a Bremer County 4-H shooting sports team.
Thompson started working at Hartman Reserve as an Americorps naturalist in November 2008 logging 1,700 hours in 10 months. Her biggest project was race director for the 2009 Eco Triathlon, a race that involves kayaking, mountain biking and trail running.
The assistant program coordinator position opened up a year ago and because her Americorps job went through August 2009, Hartman held the job open for her until September.
Thompson earned first place state FFA proficiency awards for outdoor resources and environmental conservation natural resource management. She was chapter reporter, and she chaired several committees. She was on the parliamentary procedure team that went to state, and she competed in job interview. She is now working on her American FFA Degree application.
She lists her mother and her FFA advisor as her mentors, and also credits her science teachers.
"They pushed me to do my best," she said.