In my internship, I have been very thankful to work with some great people. My supervisor, Mike Parsons, was very kind and encouraging of all of my project ideas. I was blessed to have Jeff and Sandy Ochampauph sponsor my internship. I worked with Russell County’s Economic Development and the LiveWell Committee to help promote people to be active outdoors.
This summer, I have worked on two main projects to help promote health outdoors. The first project was 2 yoga sessions. One was for high school and middle school students and one for the community. The high school and middle school session was held on July 14 at 8am on our local football field. It was led by an amazing instructor, Ashleigh Meyer. We had 52 participants. For our community session, which was held on July 16, at 6am at the lawn west of the golf course, we had 12 participants. This session was also instructed by Ashleigh Meyer and assisted by Breahna Procopio. Jason Drake photographed both sessions, and Mike Parsons flew a drone for some cool footage. My other main project was making QR Codes for the equipment on the Russell Regional Hospital’s Walking Trail. When the QR Code is scanned, an instructional video explaining the equipment pops up. In the video, there are three things that are discussed: how to use the equipment, what part of your body is worked using that piece of equipment, and what core body and motor skills are worked. The videos are 30 seconds-1minute long. My original idea for this project was to be county wide, and the QR codes would be used for a Historical County Walk. When I first pitched this idea to my supervisor, Mr.Parsons, he loved the idea, however due to the time constraints with my internship, we decided to scale down the idea to just the Russell Regional Hospital Walking Trail. Next summer, I would love to have the opportunity to have another internship within the Ogallala Commons to work with the Economic Development again to continue my work on the QR Codes, but extend it out into the county.
My main challenge throughout my internship was time management. I play on an AAU basketball team during the summers, and also have sports practices for about 4 hours a day. Blocking out time to work on my internship was something that I really had to work on. Most days, I would stay up late working on my internship. My biggest success is how much confidence I now have in my professionalism.
At the beginning of the summer, I set 3 main goals for myself. I wanted to improve my communication, which I believe that I have. On Monday-Friday, I check my email at least once a day, and I used to never check my email. My second goal was to improve my confidence. I am much more confident when speaking on the phone and communicating through email than I was at the beginning of the summer. My last goal was to meet new people and meet community leaders. Through this internship, I have met many new people and made many new connections.
