Oliver's Awesome Day at Paola

 The Solar Eclipse day marked an awesome day for Oliver at the Paola Invitational Golf Tournament.  He ended up shooting an 80, which earned him 4th place!

The school did some bragging on my boy :)

What made this day extra-special was that Ty was there also!  These cousins came in 3rd and 4th, as the Eudora paged announced.  How cool is that?!?

So proud of these boys!

Solar Eclipse 2024

 In 2017 we had a total solar eclipse occur within an hour of home.  I blogged about it here .  In that post I said, "It was such an awesome experience, my boys are already talking about the NEXT eclipse.  There will actually be another one coming through southeast Missouri and most of Arkansas about a month before Calvin will graduate from high school (April 8, 2024).  Russ thinks this sounds like a great guys trip to celebrate his graduation!"  Naïve me didn't realize just how busy life would be when Calvin was a month from graduating high school!  Having boys who are a senior and a sophomore carries a much different schedule than when they were 6th and 4th graders! So with golf meets, track meets, prom and all sorts of other "life" happenings, we weren't able to get away to see totality this time.  I was definitely jealous of Grandpa Denny and Grandma Jo who were in totality near their lake home in Arkansas.  I had to settle for the rooftop deck at LMH with some of my favorite work phamily.

These were the best pics I could get of 92% (or whatever the final number was) totality through my glasses.

Oliver was at a golf meet in Paola that day (where he played AWESOME -- I'll post about that soon) and Violet was at a Hawaiian luau day in Baldwin. Her teacher sent me this picture.

Evie and her class also got to experience the eclipse at school.  These are the cool glasses she brought home.

Since we weren't in totality, I'll finish with some awesome pictures that people posted of the occasion.  This is a high-resolution image from a NASA telescope -- how cool is that?!

And here are a few more from local and not-local photographers. I love that they shared their pictures!

God's creativity never ceases to amaze me.  I shared this image in my last post, but I'll share it again because it's cool to see when the next eclipse will take place.  We have to wait a few more years this time, but in 2045 there will be one not too far from home.  The kids were telling me that I'd probably be a grandma by then.  I BETTER be a grandma by then!  And I hope I can take my grandkids to Bull Shoals to see it :)

Dwyer Men Dominate at State FBLA!

 We just returned from an awesome week at State FBLA and I couldn't be more proud of my boys!  They left on Wednesday morning and took several tests that day. As part of the campaign committee, they also got Mason's campaign booth all set up for Thursday.  I headed to Topeka Thursday morning on the bus at 6:30 with the rest of the students competing.  Here we go at the Opening Ceremony of The 72nd Annual State Leadership Conference 2024!

After the Opening Ceremony concluded, we headed to the campaign booth area for Mason to tell all of the voters why he was the best choice for Kansas FBLA President.

These guys helped with the campaign until it was time for their tests/events to start.  Calvin and Oliver each took 9 individual tests (75 questions each), so they were busy.

I was lucky enough to get to hang out with 3 handsome Dwyer men! Jackson was there as a judge for Introduction to Public Speaking.  I loved seeing so many Wellsville grads and former FBLA members there giving back to the organization that gave the so much.

At 3:00 the finals results became available.  Typically these are posted for everyone to choose their time slots for Friday.  There was a slight delay this time, though, because literally every single Wellsville team that entered made finals. This is exciting, but also a problem, because there just aren't enough time slots for every team to present, especially for Calvin, Owen, Mason, and Oliver who were in multiple events.  Because Rott does so much for the State Conference, she sequestered the papers and we pow-wowed in the back room for about half hour, trying to figure out the best plan.  This didn't make us super-popular with everyone else waiting, but it saved a BUNCH of phone calls later.

That evening we went to dinner at Schotzsky's and then the kids headed to the dance.  I found plenty to do helping Rott during the dance and before I knew it, it was time to head back to Wellsville.  My day started on the bus at 6:30 a.m. and ended on the bus at almost 11:00 p.m.  It was a very full and fun day!

Friday morning started for me back on a school van this time at 7:45.  We had fewer kids with us this time because the middle schoolers didn't come and several more stayed at the hotel.  I came prepared with snacks as my boys' schedules were CRAZY! They were going to be running solid with events from 10:00-12:30ish.  I'm sure they didn't sleep much, but adrenaline kept them going on Friday!

First up, Business Management for Calvin and Marketing for Oliver.  In these events, the team gets a prompt and 20 minutes to prepare a presentation based on it.  I was extra-proud of Oliver on this one because his Marketing team included Calvin and Mason, but both of them were in other events at 10:00 so Oliver did this team event by himself.  So he had no one to brainstorm with or help him present. That would really stress me out, but he actually said it was fun!

Next up was Hospitality and Event Management and I snuck a picture of the boys at the end of this presentation. I loved being able to watch them do their thing!

Then Kenyon joined my boys for Sports and Entertainment Management, and Emmy and Blake joined Oliver for Intro to Event Planning.

This Senior Dream Team absolutely KILLED IT in International Business.  Seriously, they were so impressive.

As you can imagine, the morning flew by.  When the events concluded, we grabbed lunch, the kids got their hotel rooms cleaned up, and before we knew it, it was time for the Awards Ceremony.  It was so exciting as Wellsville students were called on stage again and again and again!  Mason, Calvin and Owen got 1st in Business Management!

Calvin placed in 3 individual events.  With over 1700 students competing, this is VERY difficult to do!  He got 6th in Economics and 7th in Personal Finance (and it was cool that Mason was able to present the award). . .

. . . and I was floored when he got 1st in Securities and Investments!  Such a huge accomplishment!

Oliver also placed in an individual event, getting 5th in Introduction to FBLA. In addition, he placed 5th in Marketing, the team event that he completed solo -- so proud of him!

There were 2 events in which the Dwyer boys were on the team together.  They placed 3rd in Hospitality and Event Management and 1st in Sports and Entertainment.

Calvin's Senior Dream Team got 1st, which didn't surprise me at all -- I love that these boys won the State Championship in basketball a couple weeks ago and have now also won the State Championship in FBLA!  Oliver's team with Emmy and Trey were State Champs in Intro to Event planning, too!

The final presentation of the night was the Outstanding Chapter Award, given to the top FBLA chapter in Kansas -- Wellsville won!  Calvin and Owen received this award from Connie Lindell (who has been the State Advisor since my days as an officer) on behalf of the chapter.  The meeting concluded with Mason being presented the President's gavel.  What a day for Wellsville FBLA!!

I couldn't wait to hug these two after the ceremony!!

Time for celebration!  Huddle up, Wellsville FBLA!

We had 13 students qualify for Nationals by placing 1st in a State event. Nationals is in Orlando this summer (which is where it was after my senior year), so I know these kids will have a blast!  Congratulations to all of them!

And here are just some of the awards my boys brought home (with several being team events, other members took some of the plaques and certificates home).  It's quite the haul!  And as I said at the beginning of this post, I couldn't be more proud of them.  I'm so thankful for FBLA and all it has taught my sons.  I'm thankful for the time off work so I could chaperone and have the opportunity to watch them shine in their events.  I'm thankful for their good friends and memories made during their stay at the hotel during the conference. I'm thankful for their God-given talents and this organization that allows them to be used.  And I'm thankful for the anticipation of a great week in Orlando coming up this summer!  Go Eagles!!