A Message from Katie Jo Jones, VQHYA President

Dear fellow VQHYA and VQHA members,

I hope everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of summer, and getting ready to head back to school and go back to your usual fall/winter routines. This has been one amazing summer for VQHYA. Colby Ringer, Michael Felts, Whitney Southall, Kimberly Brown, Shiloh Finch, Kacie Collier, and myself started it off with a boom by representing Virginia at the Youth Excellence Seminar and AQHYA Convention in June. They got the opportunity to learn leadership skills, meet other members of AQHYA from all over the United States, and vote on who they wanted to run AQHYA for 2010-2011.

Michael Felts, Sammi Felts, Megan McConkey, Kassie Blazer, Matthew Nash, Tori Shockley, Ben Shank, Elizabeth Shank, and myself then took Virginia to the AQHYA youth world championship show the first week of August. The world show was a complete success. We came back with 1 Reserve World Championship, 1 third place, 2 Top 40, 1 Top 30, 1 Top 20, and 2 Top Tens! It was truly a year to remember. Virginia also ended up third place in the team spirit and stall decoration contest! Our stall decorations were awesome! Thank you to Chris Ringer and Melissa Wright for picking them out and Kyle Hughes for hauling them out to Oklahoma. The Team Virginia outfits were also very stylish and we all walked in with dignity and pride and preformed a dance that we developed ourselves with help from Chris and Melissa. Everyone got along fantastic and everyone was always willing to offer a helping hand whether it was simply sweeping the aisle way or attempting to fix our broken Port-A-Cool.

We would also like to give a big thank you to our parent association and Gene Montgomery for providing the Youth Association with enough money to buy Port-A-Cools. We would have burnt up otherwise! I would also like to give a BIG thank you to Chris Ringer and Melissa Wright for coming out to the world show and supporting us and for all of the time they put into ordering our outfits, entering us, and making stall decorations. We wouldn’t have been able to make it without you guys! The Calendar Raffle is now underway so stay in touch to see if you won anything! This has been a great year for VQHYA so far, and we can’t wait to see what the Congress and the rest of the year has to bring for Virginia!

God Bless you all!

Katie Jo Jones

VQHYA President