Congratulations Laura & Kaylee: 2014 Knox County Distinguished Young Women!

Today was day 2 of the Knox County Distinguished Young Women scholarship [formerly Junior Miss] competition weekend. The 21 girls in the program have been working for six straight weeks on preparing for this; as an alumni of the 2003 program, I know exactly what they were going through today.

Since today was the finale of the show, I rustled up a couple of memoirs from the 2002 show:

2003 Central Knox County Junior Miss Winners:
back: Me! & Chrissy
front: Kate. Kelly [2003 winner]. Dericka 

& this classic shot that will make me laugh forever...
1st runner up & the winner!

The first and pretty much only thing on the early part of today's agenda: Contestant interviews!
... To say that I had immediate flashbacks of doing this 11 years ago [no, I'm not awful at math; the actual competition was fall of 2002 before we graduated the following Spring ;)] is an understatement. As I sat in that room with the other judges, I felt so much empathy for these girls and their obvious nerves. I will spare details for the sake of confidentiality, but I will gladly say that I enjoyed the day and the full glimpse into what happens on the other side of the table.

The DYW board treated the judges to dinner at The Alcove, a classic fixture of downtown Mount Vernon. It's been yeaaars since I set foot in that place, but we all walked away with our appetites satisfied and our minds ready for the final leg of the competition.

Before I knew it, we were back in our balcony seats of the Memorial Theatre, plugged in to the last half of talent, fitness & self expression performances. I was reminded tonight how proud I am to have come out of Knox County; I have spent the past two days watching 21 of the most talented young women in this county showing off what they should be rightfully proud of. We might be a small place, but our talent is far from it!

I borrowed some snippets from the Mt. Vernon News, compliments of Virgil Shipley [aka, MV's legendary news photographer]:

alumni!
[shout out to kelly{2003 central knox junior miss}
 & luisa {2002 central knox junior miss} in the front!]

contestants on stage - beautiful!

left: central knox winner, 1st & 2nd runner up
right: greater knox winner, 1st & 2nd runner up

When it was all said and done, and the numbers had been tallied, a community of people stood to applaud and congratulate the 2014 Distinguished Young Women of Central & Greater Knox County.

So... CONGRATULATIONS to Kaylee (Greater) & Laura (Central)!



2014 distinguished young women of knox county, ohio
laura (central) & kaylee (greater)
{headshot photo cred: nicole leone miller photography}

There is no way I would've been able to judge this competition on my own; there were so many talented girls on that stage [21, to be exact] and I honestly believe they are all on their way to do great things after graduation. Did I mention I'm super proud to be a Knox Co. native?? (:

It's still November, so it's still that month of Thanksgiving & being thankful. On that note...

Day 23: I am grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of this incredible scholarship program when I was a high school senior. I am grateful that my beautiful, small but historic hometown is the center of competition for the local and state program. I am grateful to have been selected as an alumni judge for the 2014 program, thus being reminded of the talent and ambition in the seniors coming out of Knox County. I am grateful for the other four judges [JoEllen, Tina, Kait & Jenn], and for Tim & Leah, our navigators through the process over this weekend. What an incredible group of people, and an honor to be a part of it.

GOOD LUCK at STATE, to Laura & Kaylee!

& on that note, good night (:

xo | cmd

Motor City Work Conference, Pt. II

gooood morning, detroit :|

I woke up in Detroit this morning.
I woke up way too early.
I smelled like an ashtray when I woke up.. because you can still smoke indoors in Michigan.
And somehow, I woke up hungry.

Luckily for us, the Westin is a classy little-well, not really little - joint, so there's nothing to complain about with wide waterfall showerheads, marble sinks, window blinds that filter in the light but not the dilapidated view of demolition and chaos.... and of course a full-scale breakfast buffet line, complete with coffee.. to start off day 2 of our conference.

Fast forward to training [it's a bunch of useful info that's applicable to my job but not really to a blog].. and then fast forward again to the part where we continued eating. They called the food-intake part "breaks." We called it the other way around: in between eating, we took some breaks and learned some stuff. It's a huge win.

So yeah, we ate, again, at the full-table service awards luncheon. ConGRATS to Kortney on being recognized as one of the top 5 sales reps for our territory, to Nikki, Kortney & Anna on completing their EUC for sales, and to a tiny self-backpat for completing my EUCP. It only took me a shy 3 years to do it. Haha.

express takes care of its own ;)

Oh, and Chris bid for and won this:

4-foot tall wooden express superhero?
..... check.

Haha.

Anyway, it wasn't long before Nikki, Elisa and I were back in yoga clothes and packed in a row into the backseat, headed for home. We stopped off at a gas station in Wapakoneta [yep, welcome to Ohio...] and debated a mini visit to the Armstrong Air & Space Museum, but were distracted immediately by the DQ, which of course was a bigger priority. It'd been nearly FOUR hours since we'd eaten, so by this point in the weekend after having stretched our stomachs to the max with heart-attacking food, we figured, why not?

neil armstrong air & space museum | wapokoneta, oh

.... and then, finally, we were home.
It's still early in the evening; Oktoberfest/Zincinnati is happening this weekend downtown, but if I'm being honest, I'm parked on the couch now and really not in the mood to do anything else. 

... Don't judge.
I'll see how I feel about all of it tomorrow. (:
For now, I'm gonna lay here and attempt to will this food to digest.
We'll pick this back up tomorrow.

xo | cmd

Business of the Month

It's raining again. It's pretty dreary and drab out there, which proved to be a good motivator to keep me in the house packing instead of playing outside in the sunshine. Silver lining!

In other great news, CONGRATULATIONS to my office for receiving this award ... we've all worked incredibly hard to get here, and I definitely think we earned it. 

woo!!

I'm so proud of this team; I've seen in just a few short years the growth we've had and I'm personally proud alone to be a part of it all!

express employment professionals!
marc & diana | our team!

Not bad news for an otherwise dreary looking day, huh?

I should get back to packing. This house isn't going to box itself up, right?

.... Right? :)

xo | cmd