Here are some highlights from my March travels. My biggest takeaway from recent events is participation definitely seems to be on the rise. It was so great to see so many new and familiar faces. 

I began March by attending the Peaks & Prairies "Almost" Spring Meeting at the Fairmont Hotsprings Resort near Anaconda, Mont. It was a record attendance and the education was outstanding with Brian Horgan, Ph.D., Wendell Hutchens, Ph.D., and Hector Velazquez. 

My next stop was in Pendleton, Ore., where I attended the Inland Empire Spring meeting at the Wildhorse Casino & Resort. It wasn't a record attendance, but the meeting was certainly well attended. Darren Davis, CGCS, made it out from Florida and delivered two flawless presentations. With that said, we had two GCSAA Past Presidents present!

Following the Inland Empire meeting, I traveled to Central Oregon where I attended the Oregon State FFA conference. Oregon State's Alec Kowalewski, Ph.D., and I manned a booth for a couple of days and met with what seemed like every one of the 2,500 attendees.  It was an extremely productive two days. 

A highlight of the conference was seeing my niece's daughter take third in the state in the freshman speech contest. I am so proud of this young lady. She was amazing. You can catch a clip of her speech on my Twitter feed. 

My last trip of the month was to Lawrence for the Chapter Leaders Symposium. All but one of my chapters were in attendance. This year we had such a great group of attendees. All were so excited to be there and were grateful for the experience.

Finally, a trip to Lawrence can't go without saying how good it is to get together with my fellow field staff and the other staff members as well. We only get out to Kansas two times a year but when we do, we certainly enjoy our time together.