From July 25-August 5, I worked as the assistant manager at the pork stand in the Taste of Ohio Cafe at the Ohio State Fair. Here, I managed our cashiers, counted money for the day, stocked product, and had a variety of other jobs and duties. At first, I was very unsure as to how this would go, but the state fair ended up being one of my favorite parts of my internship. I enjoyed what I was doing, even if it wasn’t directly related to communications, and enjoyed working with the people in the cafe. I think what made this experience enjoyable was that I was not expecting it to go as well as it did. However, I still gained a lot from this experience, even if I don’t intend to go into food service. One of the biggest lessons I learned was the difference between hard work and overworking yourself. On day 10, I had been doing so much that I felt sick and ended up leaving even before the day was half over. I think this will be something for me to remember when I am striving to do my best or maybe even working a little too much.

This week, I spent almost all of my time working on projects for the state fair. This included creating and cutting coupons, setting up registers, contacting donors for our meat cooler and more. In addition, I also helped train some of our cashiers for the Taste of Ohio Cafe. I really enjoyed seeing the process from a new perspective and learning about what goes into these types of positions or opportunities from a manager’s perspective. Aside from my state fair responsibilities, I also attended a Seneca County Commissioners meeting and drafted some talking points for a water quality meeting. The Seneca County meeting was different than the other two meetings I attended, as this was open to the public and held in a court room. I enjoyed hearing the public’s perspective and taking their questions in addition to speaking with the commissioners.

After taking the week off during the 4th of July, I was back in the office once again. Because OPC has a heavy presence at the Ohio State Fair, my responsibilities shifted a bit to focus almost primarily on preparing for the fair. This included editing menus, contacting potential volunteers, updating last year’s documents and other tasks. Outside of these tasks, I also attended two meetings with county commissioners. These meetings are set up to establish a relationship between OPC and counties in the Western Lake Erie basin. During the meetings, I began the conversation and then turned it over to to a board member to discuss improvements in the industry, environmental concerns, and more.

This week, I spent my time working at home on various tasks. I spent a lot of time working with graphic design projects, such as graphics for social media or redesigning a magazine insert. I also worked on redesigning the member e-mail updates, which included reformatting the e-mail and creating a border in Photoshop. In addition, I worked on our county commissioner program, in which a OPC staff member and member/ farmer will go to county commissioner meetings in the Western Lake Erie Basin and give a presentation about the local pork industry. This required me to email OPC members and contact county commissioner offices.

Like many weeks thus far, this one consisted of time working on office tasks as well as tasks away from the office. On Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I spent a lot of time doing my general tasks, like writing press releases, editing content for our quarterly magazine, or creating graphics. On Tuesday, I attended my first OPC board meeting, where I was I tasked with taking minutes for the meeting. I enjoyed seeing how the board operates and how it affects the council. It is interesting to work in this type of organization, as there are many decisions that are made or influenced by this group of men and women, but I won’t see them too much in the office. I could tell that the board members really cared about the industry and desire to see OPC grow and thrive. On Friday, I worked another of OPC’s events, the Pork Chop Golf Outing. During the event, I completed numerous tasks, such as errand running, taking photos, and cleaning and setting-up the event. The golf outing was attended by pork farmers or agriculture industry professionals.

For the majority of this week, I attended state intern training with the National Pork Board in Des Moines, Iowa. Our first day consisted of numerous presentations from different departments within NPB. On our second day, we attended Operation Main Street Training, in which we learned how to handle and answer questions about the industry, especially when talking with the media. I really enjoyed learning about interviewing and answering these types of questions, as I have an interest in public relations.  I had never considered how much thought must go into answering these types of questions, from what words to use or whether or not to respond with facts and statistics. Our final day was spent at the World Pork Expo, where I watched purebred hog shows and explored the trade show. On Thursday and Friday, I worked on various office tasks, from editing Porkline content to creating slideshows.

This week has been very interesting and unique, as it was Memorial Day and we moved out of the office. Primarily, I worked on organizing teams and sponsors for the golf outing, which is our next event on June 15. A lot of the other work was miscellaneous tasks that needed to be completed before we moved out of the office and began to work from home. On Wednesday, we officially moved out of the office and will working from home for the time being, as our new office in New Albany won’t be available for a couple of weeks. I am enjoying all the different experiences that I am having with this internship and all of them contribute to some experience that can be utilized in numerous positions.

We are moving offices next week, so this week was focused on packing the office. Most of this time was spent packing things into boxes, but also organizing the boxes and where they should be placed in the storage unit. Next week, the office will be packed up and moved to a storage unit, while we will work from home until we find a new office. When I wasn’t busy packing, I worked on various projects, such as organizing teams for our golf outing or working on graphics for social media posts.

During my second week as an intern for the Ohio Pork Council, my duties were divided between communication activities and preparing for our event, Pork-a-Palooza. During the beginning of the week, I wrote a press release, edited Porkline content, and organized golf teams for our next event. Towards the end of the week, I was helping finalize things for Pork-a-Palooza, such as working on invites or setting up at the fairgrounds. Pork-a-Palooza was on Saturday, so I spent my day selling tickets and then tearing down the event.

This was my first week working as a Communication Intern for the Ohio Pork Council. This organization is funded through the Pork Checkoff and focuses on promoting and advocating for the pork industry. Throughout my time as an intern, I will be doing a variety of tasks, like writing press releases or magazine content, designing graphics, and serving as an assistant manager for one of OPC’s food stands at the Ohio State Fair. This week, I wrote my first press release, created some content for Ohio Porkline- a publication through the Ohio Pork Council- and attend the OAND conference as a representative of the Ohio Pork Council. I am excited to see that I already using skills that I have learned through my course work and I am enjoying advocating for the pork industry.