Award Ceremony - Pullman, April 18

Each year the College of Veterinary Medicine hosts an awards ceremony in which scholarships are presented to the veterinary students first-through-fourth year. Many of the scholarships are given based on an application process, but several fourth year awards are nominated by the clinicians. These are the most fun since no one can apply for them specifically. Overall, there is a large amount of money awarded to the student body. (A fact that is clearly made known to us at the beginning of the evening.) I drove home for the event from Western Washington and managed to accomplish tons during the two days spent home.

My old roommate, Anne (above with me), was nominated by her classmates as the person most helpful, optimistic, and overall great - something like a Miss Congeniality award, but I can't remember the official title. An award much deserved, I might add.

My amazing husband received first place for best senior paper!! Each fourth year student had to research, write, and present a topic of his/her choice. Three awards were given for the best papers. I'm so proud of him! His paper was the culmination of 2-3 years of research which looked at dogs who underwent orthopedic surgery and had a metal plate placed in their knee. He wanted to know if there was increased use of the limb post-surgery if the plate was removed several weeks after being placed compared to those dogs whose metal plates remained in the knee. At this time, there was no statistical evidence that removing the plate increased use of the leg. Like all research, more needs to be done in this area!

My classmate and friend, Milo Andrus, and I received an award for proficiency and work in reproduction. I am particularly proud of this because I worked for 2 years as president of the student chapter of the Society of Theriogenology (fancy word for study of reproduction).

Definately a fun night! Many of our friends received awards and it was nice to see everyone again for a while.