I have also had a passion for sports has been a life-long one that began virtually before I could walk, from stories that my parents have informed me of.  I was involved in football, baseball and basketball in high school, and was the recipient of various awards and accolades as a member of these sports.  I still play many sports in my free time as I participate in a few basketball leagues, play slow pitch softball in the summers and have even taken up the sport of volleyball, which I am getting quite good at now.  After I graduated from high school, I immediately started volunteering as a youth basketball coach for a sixth grade boys team and have coached just about every year since.  That group of boys are now seniors at RTR High School and have only lost one game this season.  After I coached boys for two years, I started dating the woman I was recently married to.  She, of course has younger sisters that played basketball, which led to me coaching girls basketball first at the fourth grade level and then at the sixth grade level last year.  I was not sure what to expect when coaching a girl's team for the first time, but was pleasantly surprised with how similar they are to coach and how well they responded to my coaching.  
    This year, the coaching positions for the seventh and eighth grade girls basketball teams at RTR were open, and some of the parents of the girls I coached last year recommended my wife and I as good candidates for the position.  We were contacted by the principal and before I knew it, I had my first paid coaching position, as I had been volunteering when coaching the younger age groups.  My wife is also an accomplished volleyball coach, as she recently took her Junior Olympics team to the National Junior Olympics Tournament this past summer.  We have had a successful year with both groups this year as our seventh grade has a 5-3 record and our eighth grade has a 7-2 record.  We only have two games left this season, as we play Canby tomorrow night and Tracy-Milroy-Balaton next week.  We are planning on taking them to a few tournaments once the season has concluded as well.  I hope that I can continue coaching in the future, as it works well with my career in agriculture, which will keep me busiest in the summer and early fall while basketball takes place during the winter months. 
    

    As I stated in my first blog, I am interning with CENTROL Crop Consulting this summer and I am extremely excited about it.  There will be many new tasks that I will learn how to perform and new equipment that I will learn how to use.  I will primarily be going out and using a GPS to locate certain spots and then gathering soil samples from the fields of area farmers and testing this soil to find out it's composition as well as what nutrients it contains and ones that it requires.  Upon gathering the soil and testing it for these facors, I will then get to perform research on what products I would recommend the farmer use on his field, such as fertilizer, pesticides/herbicides, which hybrid of seed and from which company, and any other things that I may have noticed while analyzing or researching.  Next, I will continue to monitor the farmer's fields as the crop grows and monitor it for any diseases, pests, or signs of nutrient deficiencies that can be corrected to produce a better yielding crop at harvest.  
    I feel that I am going to enjoy everything this internship has to offer.  I will learn how to use state of the art equipment utilized in the agriculture industry today, work closely with and develop relationships with area farmers, work outdoors much of the time, monitor the crops through their whole growth cycles, monitor crops for a variety of different diseases and pests, and essentially get paid to give the farmer honest and reliable advice without trying to push any one type of product on them.  I will simply be giving them the best advice on how to get a good yielding crop on whatever field and soil type they may be trying to grow it on.  As I grew up on a farm and am related to a seed salesman, I know that as with any form of sales, the salesman is always trying to convince you that their product is the best.  CENTROL is aimed at removing this from the equation by being an unbiased source of agricultural knowledge that farmers can depend on for reliable information without having one type of seed or chemical pushed on them without knowing if it is their best choice.  I like what the company stands for and I feel that It is the type of place that I will enjoy working at. 

Hi everyone!  My name is Barry Alderson and, as you have already concluded from my blog title, I am an Agronomy major.  I wanted this first blog to try to represent what I am and what I am striving to work for in my work career.  I was previously going to school for teaching and coaching, which I still enjoy doing as I am currently coaching 7th and 8th grade basketball teams at RTR Middle School  I also grew up on a farm and enjoyed all the time outdoors as well as farmwork itself.  Torn between the two passions of my life, I chose the one with the overall best career outlook and allowed the other to be a part-time job of mine.  I am excited with the direction I have chose and plan to intern with CENTROL Crop Consulting this summer and will graduate after the summer semester.  I hope to get a full-time position with the company after my internship or find one with a company that performs similar services to farmers.  I still plan to continue helping my dad and cousin on our own family farm when I am able after graduation.  I also intend to coach basketball over the winter months, as this works out perfectly around my busy summer and fall schedule in the agriculture world.  Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading up on the blogs' of others throughout the semester.