AHYA President's Corner

AHYA Welcomes Katie Pelphrey as the 2010-11 AHYA President!

Hello AHYA!

My name is Katie Pelphrey and I was just recently elected to serve as your President for the next year. If you show, I hope you have had an great time showing your Arabian this season! If you do not show I hope all is well with you and your horse. I look forward to serving as your President and I look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions.

As always, AHYA hosted several events and fundraisers at the 2010 Youth Nationals. We kicked the show off with our 2010 Youth Convention. This year the theme for the convention and the show was AHYA Chills and Thrills, a Halloween theme! At this convention we had 119 delegates present who had the opportunity to vote for the executive board, hear updates on some of our most active committees, and hear from our keynote speaker, Dr. Shelle. Dr. Shelle is the the Faculty Coordinator for the Horse Teaching and Research Center, the Coordinator of Undergraduate Programs and Associate Chairperson of the Department of Animal Science at Michigan State University, he discussed with us the importance of getting an education and the opportunities available to those wanting to learn about horses and to work with them. At the convention we also held the elections for the new executive board. I am the President, Laura Killian from Region 15 is the new Vice President, Marissa Jensen from Region 5 is the new Secretary and Christian Martens from Region 2 is the treasurer. We are all looking forward to spending the next year working with you!

Our next big event was the Parade of regions on Sunday. Despite the rain, all the youth came out with their spooky golf carts and crazy costumes. The parade was a lot of fun this year with the theme being Halloween, everyone had a lot of fun dressing up.

Other events that we hosted were the stick horse class and workshop, the dog costume class, the dog races, the National Hippology contest and the Novice Horse Judging Contest. The Novice Horse Judging Contest is a great way for youth contestants to start preparing for the widely recognized National Arabian Horse Judging Contest which is held in conjunction with our U.S. National Show each year. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Arabian contest. This is a great opportunity for youth interested in being a future judge and we encourage everyone to participate!

One of our biggest fundraiser for the show is the Flying Pigs Fundraiser. This a fundraiser where we sell pigs with numbers on the bottom. We write down the names of who bought which numbered pigs and at the show on Tuesday and Thursday we have the tosses. You try to throw your pig into a hula-hoop in the middle of the arena, whoever gets their pig closest to the middle wins a percentage of the money raised. This fundraiser is a lot of fun and a very important source of income for our youth activities fund. This year we raised $906 , we are very thankful for everyone present at Youth Nationals who supported this fundraiser.

This was the fourth year for the AHYA Consignment Sale at Youth Nationals. Throughout the week Youth Programs Volunteers took in gently used show clothes and consigned the items to benefit Youth Programs and AHYA. The Consignment Sale raised $3363 as well as gain several new donated items to be sold next year for 100% profit to AHYA. In addition to this fundraiser the Arabian Horse Times hosted a silent auction and all the proceeds were donated to AHYA. The items in the auction were of high quality and we are so appreciative to The Arabian Horse Times for donation this silent auction. From this fundraiser we raised $2910. We have had great success with our fundraising efforts this year, these fundraisers are so crucial to the youth activities that AHA provides throughout the year.

One of the most exciting events at the Youth Nationals this year was the fashion show hosted by Iron Horse Jeans, AHA's new Corporate Partner. Exhibitors and board members modeled Iron Horse Jeans and other clothing items and accessories from the commercial exhibitors during the ice cream social on Wednesday night. Upcoming country artist Felicia King was present and performed a few of her songs. NASCAR driver Tayler Malsam was present at the event with his Iron Horse Jeans racecar signing autographs and taking pictures.

Overall AHYA had a very productive and fun show! We hope that all the exhibitors had fun participating the events we hosts and showing their horse. Youth Nationals is always such a great experience we hope that any members with dreams of attending will be able to join us in the fun very soon! If you have any questions about AHYA or you would like to get involved feel free to contact me or anyone else on the executive board.

Cheers,

~ Katie Pelphrey
AHYA President

AHYA Past President's