School’s out for the summer! That means we have more hands to help us this season as two Iowa State University students, Rachel Norby and Kourtney Determan, are interning with us. Their first day on the job was Monday, May 14. It was a busy first week as they met several Latham team members and began tackling their summer-long projects.
Rachel says she’s looking forward to learning about the seed industry and building on her agronomy skills while working with the Latham and our Seed-2-Soil® program this summer. She grew up on a farm in Osage, Iowa, where her family raises corn, soybeans and Morgan horses. With a major in Agricultural Studies with a minor in Agronomy, this summer Rachel will be responsible for helping provide marketing support for Seed-2-Soil and our many research efforts across Latham country. During Week 1, she helped RSM Chad Meyer plant a soybean showcase plot outside Sheffield. She also helped Forage Products Manager Corey Catt plant some research plots in Alexander. Now that these plots are in the ground, Rachel will begin early season crop scouting in Latham Country. She’ll also be bringing us crop updates “From the Field.” Look for future blogs on Rachel’s projects throughout the summer.
Kourtney spent time during Week 1, getting familiar with Franklin County and its residents. She also road-tripped to Blair, Nebraska, and visited a new Latham® dealer there during one of our “From the Field” remote broadcasts. Kourtney is a Sac County native and is looking forward to getting acquainted with other regions in Iowa. As an agricultural communications major, Kourtney’s primary responsibility will be writing farm families features for Friday blog posts on TheFieldPosition.com and then turning those feature stories into a book. She’s also helping coordinate special events related to Latham’s 65th anniversary and our company’s annual sales meeting. Since our sales meeting will be in Ames this July, she also traveled there this week to get some ideas of what families might enjoy during their free time. It looks like the LEGO® exhibit at Reiman Gardens is worth a stop!