For the past three months, two incredible college students have served Oklahoma's pork industry with great attitudes and great ideas as part of the Oklahoma Pork Council staff. After going through a highly competitive selection process, both Chyann Emerson and Ethan Drake stood out from the crowd as the right fit for our team as Oklahoma Pork's 2025 summer interns.
Chyann Emerson is now an agribusiness and agricultural communications senior at Oklahoma State University (OSU). Growing up in Tuttle, Oklahoma, Chyann enjoyed showing pigs as part of her highly successful FFA involvement. After high school, Chyann judged livestock at Redlands Community College where she earned associate degrees in animal science and communications. Now as she finishes her degree at OSU, Chyann is a member of the livestock judging team, she served as the youth livestock coordinator intern, and she participated in Pork Industry Group last fall.
Throughout this summer, Chyann handled many fun projects as our communications intern. She worked with Shay Stegmann to make materials for Pork Congress, launch our recent summer swag store, and assist with several photo and video shoots. Alongside Ethan and our full-time staff, she was also an incredible asset planning workshops for students and other Pork Council programming all summer long. Chyann brought her down-to-business attitude and heart for service into this role every day, and we are proud to always have her as part of our pork talent pipeline.
Ethan Drake heads back to school as an agriculture education senior at OSU. He grew up working on several farms and local businesses near his hometown Mountain Grove, Missouri. Ethan's involvement with the pork industry began as a show pig exhibitor in FFA, and he continues to be active in a variety of livestock and community organizations. Ethan earned associate degrees in animal science and agriculture education from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College. At NEO, he was active in livestock judging and more. Since transferring to OSU, Ethan has been involved in Pork Industry Group and worked at Noble County Meats
Over the past three months, Ethan served as Oklahoma Pork's education and outreach intern. He managed donation requests to support many events across the state while helping to plan several signature events throughout the summer. He has been a hands-on helper, always ready to assist our team with projects while making his passion for mentoring young people known at every turn. Ethan will remain involved with Oklahoma Pork this fall while assisting with our collegiate leadership program Pork Industry Group.
Cheers to these two fantastic young people who learned and served in impressive ways over the past few months. We look forward to helping them succeed in their future plans, and continuing to connect with them both as proud ambassadors for Oklahoma's pork industry.