Hi! I’m Natalie Morris, I’m a student attending Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas. I am studying Ag Business, and receiving a minor in Finance and a certificate in Business Law. I am a Kansas native, and I’ve lived in two towns the majority of my life St. John, and Colby. Although my family has lived in Colby the last 9 years I consider central Kansas home. I have just one sibling, a brother who’s 5 years younger than me. Once for a few years we lived in the country and had chickens, but that’s the closest I’ve ever been to owning any kind of livestock, but we’ve never farmed. In spite of this my brother and I are both studying forms of agriculture in college (when he starts college this fall he’ll be studying farm and ranch management), my parents think that’s pretty fascinating. I think we’re both interested in agriculture purely based on the areas where we’ve lived and the people we know involved in ag.
I like photography (see below), although I don’t always make time to do it, so I’m excited to be able to get out and about and take some photos for these blogs. I also enjoy music, whether it’s listening to it, or playing guitar and singing. I have a few friends that share this interest so it’s always fun to get together and sing/play with them. I love spending time outside and I have a large group of friends so we like to play sand volleyball, soccer, frisbee, or tennis whenever we can! When I have time I do enjoy reading, and always have various genre’s that I’m reading at the same time (I’m fairly certain I have about 5 books I’m reading right now). I like movies as well, a good action movie is my go-to, but older movies/musicals (as long as the acting is good) are a favorite too. Last, but certainly not least, I’m a firm believer in being able to make a good cup of coffee.
I will be doing an internship with wKREDA (Western Kansas Rural Economic Development Alliance), and in case you are curious the “w” is silent. wKREDA includes 58 counties, and I will be based out of Ellis County. I will be pulling data for wKREDA; calling different producers and businesses that have ties to agriculture (whether it’s straight from the producer to the consumer, or from producer to a retailer to a consumer) and seeing how they impact their community. Examples of businesses might be a dairy, or a mill, or even a new farmer’s market that a city started. I’m excited about this opportunity and seeing the diversity of counties in Kansas. I know that it will provide me with a good background for my future career goals.
