Hello everyone! My name is Rebecca Riley and I am grateful and privileged to announce myself as the 2014 intern for the McHenry County Farm Bureau. I look forward to working with some wonderful people, learning more about the Farm Bureau and better developing my skills to promote agriculture. I come from a small farm in Huntley, IL, where we originally milked about 45 cows. We sold the cows in 2003 and have had about 200 acres of land for growing corn and soybeans and raising 60-80 steers & a few chickens, ducks and show pigs ever since. When I am not at college, I help on the farm and am a forklift operator at the Dean Foods plant in Chemung, IL, where I load store orders of milk products onto trucks.
Throughout my childhood years, I was heavily involved in 4-H and FFA. I served in numerous officer positions for each organization and participated in dairy products, dairy and livestock judging, besides exhibiting pigs at the county fair. My passion quickly developed within animal agriculture, especially the swine industry. I have been breeding, raising and showing pigs for 10 years now. From selecting boars and sitting out in the barn all night farrowing, to daily chores and driving pigs around the yard all summer, there is nothing I dislike about working with my animals. There is no doubt that our farm shaped my life up until this point and continues to do so every day.
I will be a junior this fall at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville where I am majoring in animal science with dairy and livestock production emphasis and an agribusiness minor. I am involved with Chancellor Scholars, Collegiate FFA and Alpha Zeta, which is an agricultural honor's fraternity. I also pledged with Ceres Women's Fraternity, which is a professional, agricultural, Greek organization where I serve as the current secretary. I am also an Agriculture Ambassador and am coordinator of the Agri-Ambassador program.
Upon graduating from college, I either want to pursue my master's in swine nutrition at Iowa State University or land a career in some facet of the swine industry. It would be ideal to continue breeding a couple of sows each year for show pigs. No matter where I end up working, it is my goal to "agvocate," or spread awareness and interest for the agriculture industry.
