TRACTOR SUPPLY HOSTING NATIONAL FFA FUNDRAISER
Donations made in-store and online with a purchase during National FFA Week support student-led agricultural projects
(February 14, 2019) – Beginning this week, Tractor Supply Company stores across the country will be collecting donations to support grants for FFA chapters in their community.
Coinciding with National FFA Week (February 17-24), Tractor Supply customers can donate $1 or more at checkout from February 13–24 while shopping in-store or online with a purchase at www.tractorsupply.com. Donations will fund the national Grants for Growing program, supporting hundreds of unique and sustainable agricultural projects nationwide.
“We are honored to play a role in the future of agricultural education through our partnership with local FFA chapters across the country,” said Christi Korzekwa, senior vice president of marketing at Tractor Supply Company. “Given the generosity and support of our customers and team members, we can invest in the next generation of leaders who are making a significant difference in their local communities and beyond.”
Since the program’s start in 2016, Grants for Growing has raised more than $2.2 million for the National FFA Organization and has funded 994 grants supporting agricultural projects.
Earlier this year, FFA chapters submitted applications detailing how they will start or expand on a project that will benefit their communities as well as both current and future FFA students. Funds have been requested to purchase vegetation, trees, seed, chickens, feed, mulch and tools for projects ranging from greenhouses to aquaculture labs.
The success of the Grants for Growing program has increased with each year. In 2018, Tractor Supply was able to fully fund more projects than ever due to the support of customers from across the country. The campaign raised a record $830,000, enabling 271 grants to be awarded and impacting more than 30,000 students.
Grants ranging from $500 to $5,000 will be funded in the spring based on the amount of funds raised. Donations will fund grants in the same state they were donated.
For more details about the program, visit http://www.FFA.org/grantsforgrowing.
About Tractor Supply Company
Tractor Supply Company (NASDAQ: TSCO) is in its 80th year of operation and, since being founded in 1938, has grown to become the largest rural lifestyle retailer in the United States. With over 28,000 team members, more than 1,700 stores in 49 states and an e-commerce website, Tractor Supply is passionate about serving its unique niche, as a one-stop shop for recreational farmers, ranchers and all those who enjoy living the rural lifestyle. Tractor Supply offers an extensive mix of products necessary to care for home, land, pets and animals with a focus on product localization, exclusive brands and legendary customer service that addresses the needs of the Out Here lifestyle. The Company leverages its physical store assets with digital capabilities to offer customers the convenience of purchasing products they need anytime, anywhere and any way they choose at the everyday prices they deserve. At September 29, 2018, the Company operated 1,748 Tractor Supply stores in 49 states and an e-commerce website at www.TractorSupply.com.
Tractor Supply Company also owns and operates Petsense, a small-box pet specialty supply retailer focused on meeting the needs of pet owners, primarily in small and mid-size communities, and offering a variety of pet products and services. At September 29, 2018, the Company operated 181 Petsense stores in 27 states. For more information on Petsense, visit www.petsense.com.
About National FFA Organization
The National FFA Organization is a national youth organization of 653,359 student members as part of 8,568 local FFA chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The organization is supported by 344,239 alumni members in 2,051 local FFA Alumni chapters throughout the U.S. The FFA mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. The National FFA Organization operates under a federal charter granted by the 81st United States Congress and it is an integral part of public instruction in agriculture. The U.S. Department of Education provides leadership and helps set direction for FFA as a service to state and local agricultural education programs. For more, visit the National FFA Organization online at FFA.org and on Facebook, Twitter and the official National FFA Organization blog.
About National FFA Foundation
The National FFA Foundation builds partnerships with industry, education, government, other foundations and individuals to secure financial resources that recognize FFA member achievements, develop student leaders and support the future of agricultural education. Governed by a 19-member board of trustees composed of educators, business leaders, individual donors and FFA Alumni, the foundation is a separately registered nonprofit organization. About 82 percent of every dollar received by the foundation supports FFA members and agricultural education opportunities. For more, visit FFA.org/Give
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Artist selected to sculpt Martha Hughes Cannon statue
Salt Lake City – On the 149th First to Vote anniversary, the Martha Hughes Cannon Oversight Committee, together with the women of Utah’s 63rd Legislature, announced Ben Hammond was selected to sculpt the statue of Martha Hughes Cannon to be placed in the United State Capitol in 2020.
“Utah leads the nation in many ways. This statue symbolizes all that Utah achieved in the past and has yet to achieve in the future,” said Utah Senator Deidre Henderson, co-chair of the Martha Hughes Cannon Oversight Committee. “Not enough Utahns, or Americans for that matter, know that our state was on the front line of the suffrage movement.
“In fact, 50 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified, Utah women were voting, and in 1896 Martha Hughes Cannon became the first female state senator in the nation. Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon paved the way for women in Utah to take part in civic and political life. We are excited to honor her contributions by placing her statue in National Statuary Hall.”
Members of the Martha Hughes Cannon Statue Oversight Committee interviewed artists to find an individual who could fashion a sculpture to represent Utah’s rich history in the National Statuary Hall in Washington D.C. In September of 2018, a request for qualifications went out to artists, and portfolios poured in from across the U.S. In November, the committee narrowed it down to the top five finalists. Each was invited to create a maquette to present to the committee in early February 2019. The committee was pleased to offer the commission to Hammond.
Hammond has an extensive understanding of capturing realistic representations of relatable and inspiring historical portraitures. His sculptures are displayed throughout the country, and he’s a recipient of numerous awards: the Gloria Medal and the Beverly Hoyt Robertson Memorial Award in 2015 and the Bronze Medal Award at the National Sculpture Society’s Annual Awards Exhibition in 2013.
The Dr. Cannon statue will be placed in Washington D.C. in 2020 as our nation celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment and the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which made voting possible for all women. As our country commemorates women’s suffrage, Utah will celebrate its own historic and groundbreaking role in this effort.
Utah was the first state to have an American woman, Seraph Young, cast a vote in a state-wide election on February 14, 1870 – fifty years before the 19th Amendment was ratified.
A leader in the women’s suffrage movement, Dr. Cannon played a vital role to ensure the rights of women to vote and hold public office were included in the Utah Constitution after the right had been taken away in 1887. Dr. Cannon became the first-ever female state senator in the United States in 1897, more than 23 years before most women in the country were able to cast a ballot.
Every state is represented by two historical figures in our national Capitol. Currently, Brigham Young and Philo T. Farnsworth represent Utah. During the 2018 General Session, the Utah Legislature passed SCR 1, Concurrent Resolution Recommending Replacement of Statue of Philo Farnsworth in United States Capitol, proposing Utah send a statue of Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon to Washington, D.C.
Members of the Martha Hughes Cannon Statue Oversight Committee include Sen. Deidre Henderson – co-chair, Rep. Karen Kwan– co-chair, Samantha Gordon, Spencer Stokes, Adam Gardiner, Jen Christensen, Ronald L. Fox, Elizabeth Weiler and David Damschen.
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Prisons Without Bars:
How Our Thoughts Keep Us Locked Up
Khalil Osiris knows all about prison - he spent the first half of his life in one and was finally released when he was 40 years old. But he says anyone can be incarcerated in their own lives because imprisonment is much more about a state of mind than a time and place.
“It took me being in prison for me to find my freedom,” says Osiris, author of the book A Freedom That Comes From Within (www.khalilosiris.com). “When I finally understood that my thoughts and values were the source of my imprisonment, then I was free. With inner work and soul-searching, I learned that I could have faith in myself again.”
It was a long, hard road to get to that realization.
Osiris’ path to prison started when he was 17 years old and was arrested for armed robbery. He spent a few years in prison, was released and committed another robbery before he turned 21. He was sentenced to up to 75 years in prison. He did not know if he would ever get out.
“Prison was like gladiator training with each person reduced to full-on survival mode,” he says. He was stabbed by members of a white supremacist group, and while he was lying on the floor in blood, he heard one of the guards gleefully sayOsiris would soon be dead.
“I realized it was not racism or injustice or a mistake that led me back to prison,”Osiris says. “Instead, it was the effect of my many choices. I was the one who had chosen this path.”
Osiris decided to change his life after he had a life-altering experience; he heard his son’s voice for the first time during a phone call in prison. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees while incarcerated and became pen pals with Makaziwe Mandela, the oldest daughter of Nelson Mandela. The foreword of his book is written by Dumani Mandela, the grandson of Nelson Mandela and a South African author.
After his release, Osiris dedicated the rest of his life to helping people stay out of jail, whether it’s a physical jail or the prison of misguided thinking. Osiris says these are the prisons that keep people from living their lives to the fullest:
A prison we construct by using our doubts, fears and limitations as prison bars.
The prison we reinforce every year by the lack of trust in ourselves and a lack of faith in the basic goodness and rightness of the source that created the universe.
The prison that deludes us into thinking nothing more is possible for us than that which we see right now in our own life.
A prison that robs us of our dreams, of our belief in possibilities, of the motivation and inspiration to recreate our life and change it for the better.
Osiris says it was only through his prison journey and subsequent transformation that he realized that anyone can incarcerate themselves by limiting their potential.
About Khalil Osiris
Khalil Osiris is an international speaker on restorative justice and transformational leadership and the author of A Freedom That Comes From Within(www.khalilosiris.com). An author, educator, entrepreneur and social activist, he transformed his life and emerged from prison with a deep understanding of how to use personal crisis, challenges and opportunities for self-improvement. He currently splits his time between South Africa and the United States, speaking in schools, prisons and corporations. He also conducts workshops focused on personal transformation and overcoming self-imposed limitations.
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STAND ATLANTIC
SHARE NEW MUSIC VIDEO "TOOTHPICK"
TOUR WITH ONE OK ROCK
& WATERPARKS KICKS OFF TUESDAY
Photo credit: Brandon Lung
SKINNY DIPPING OUT NOW
FEBRUARY 13, 2019 - Stand Atlantic have shared their new music video for "Toothpicks" off their recent full-length album Skinny Dipping. Fans can watch the video here: smarturl.it/ToothpickVideo
On Tuesday, they will kick off their North American tour with Waterparks and One Ok Rock. For a full list of dates, please see below.
Last year, the band shared the single and music video for "Lavender Bones," which premiered on triple J's Good Nites in Australia. The song has climbed the charts to be the Most Played track on triple J on September 21st and made the triple J Hottest 101-199 countdown! The band also premiered their latest single, "Skinny Dipping" on BBC Radio 1's Indie Show With Jack Saunders, recently wrapped up a SOLD OUT headlining tour in Australia, and are gearing up for a fast-selling headlining tour in the UK in April.
Stand Atlantic, made up of Bonnie Fraser (vocals/guitar), David Potter (guitar), and Jonno Panichi (drums), launched into the international eye following Skinny Dipping. The group's blend of hard-charged rock and soaring pop melodies has earned them a home on international tours with the likes of New Found Glory, Neck Deep and State Champs - and critical accolades like a "Best International Breakthrough Band" nomination at the 2018 Heavy Music Awards and inclusion in Kerrang's highly coveted Hottest Bands of 2018.
Now, Skinny Dipping is poised to build on that success and take them even further. The unfiltered honesty of the album's 10 tracks showcases an emotional maturity beyond Stand Atlantic's collective years, a keen sense of self-awareness and desire to be unconditionally authentic even when - and perhaps especially when - it breaks their hearts.
Awash in '90s vibrancy and bounce, the title track finds Fraser coming to terms with her sexuality, fighting through a haze of self-doubt en route to a celebration of her true identity. "Skinny dipping can be seen as an innocent thing you do for fun," she explains. "But at the same time, you're naked and vulnerable and exposing yourself to anything in there. There are things in life I sometimes feel are either unimportant or something I shouldn't be talking about. It can be so isolating to be truly honest, but to have people accept you is so freeing."
Skinny Dipping is out now.
North America Dates:
w/ One Ok Rock & Water Parks
February 19 - Salt Lake City, UT @ The Depot
February 20 - Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre
February 22 - Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity
February 23 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
February 24 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues Chicago
February 26 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
February 28 - Toronto, ON @ Rebel
March 1 - Montreal, QC @ Le National
March 2 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of Living Arts
March 3 - Boston, MA @ Paraside
March 5 - New York, NY @ Terminal 5
March 6 - Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live
March 8 - Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
March 9 - Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live
March 11 - Houston, TX @ House of Blues Houston
March 12 - Dallas, TX @ House of Blues Dallas
March 13 - San Antonio, TX @ Aztec Theater
March 15 - Phoenix, AZ @ Van Buren
March 16 - Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues Las Vegas
March 17 - San Diego, CA @ The Observatory
March 19 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium
March 20 - San Francisco, CA @ The Garfield
March 22 - Vancouver, BC @ Vogue
March 24 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
UK/EU Headlining Tour
March 29 - Leeds, UK @ Key Club
March 30 - Manchester, UK @ Star & Garter
March 31 - Newcastle, UK @ Think Tank
April 1 - Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts
April 2 - Birmingham, UK @ Asylum 2
April 4 - London, UK @ Underworld
April 6 - Southampton, UK @ Joiners
April 7 - Bristol, UK @ Exchange
April 9 - Antwerp, BG @ Kavka
April 10 - Eindhoven, NL @ Dynamo Basement
April 11 - Hamburg, DE @ Headcrash
April 12 - Berlin, DE @ Musik und Frieden
April 14 - Cologne, DE @ MTC
April 15 - Paris, FR @ Le 1999
Skinny Dipping
Track Listing:
1. Lavender Bones
2. Bullfrog
3. Skinny Dipping
4. Speak Slow
5. Cigarette Kiss
6. Lost My Cool
7. Toothpick
8. Burn In The Afterthought
9. Clay (feat. Hannah Hermione Greenwood)
10. Roses
For more information, please visit www.hopelessrecords.com
Follow Stand Atlantic:
Twitter: twitter.com/standatlantic
Facebook: facebook.com/StandAtlantic
Instagram: instagram.com/standatlantic
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THE MUSIC THAT’S IN ALL OF US
By Robert C. Koehler
1219 Words
And suddenly the music burst through the borders.
This was in May of 1999, in a city in the Netherlands called Alkmaar. Laura Hassler, an American woman who had been living in the Netherlands for many years by then — who was a choir director and, in essence, the “town musician,” the organizer of public music events — had put together a concert for the town’s annual honoring of the dead of World War II.
But the bloody war in Kosovo was then raging: Thousands had died; nearly a million refugees were streaming across Europe. Its horror dominated the daily news and Laura couldn’t ignore it. She couldn’t simply focus on the war dead of half a century ago, not when the hell of war was alive in the present moment, pulling at her soul.
She decided, “We’ll perform music from the people suffering from war now — folk songs from Eastern Europe,” she told me. Her impulse was to reach out, to connect, somehow, with those suffering right now, on the other side of Europe. And something happened the night of the concert. When it ended, there was a moment of profound silence . . . and then, as the audience stood, applause so thunderous that the rafters shook. It went on for 20 minutes.
One of the musicians, a political refugee from Turkey, said to her afterwards: “This concert was special. We should put it on a train, send it to Kosovo and stop the war!”
And so it began, a Zen moment, a crazy idea. Within a few weeks, a peace group had donated office space and Musicians Without Borders — an international organization with the stated mission “to use the power of music to bridge divides, connect communities, and heal the wounds of war” — was born.
“Within a few months, we had enough money to rent buses and go to camps in the Netherlands for refugees from Kosovo,” Laura told me recently. Something profoundly necessary had manifested. “It had to happen.”
At the refugee camps, the musicians made music with children and performed again the beautiful folk songs from the region. They also brought donated violins, accordions, guitars. Refugees who were musicians were likely to have fled without their instruments. These donated instruments gave them their music back.
“This was run by passion,” Laura said. “We didn’t know exactly where we were going, but we knew what we were doing.” Within a few months the new organization was traveling to Sarajevo, in Bosnia, bringing instruments, connecting with local musicians, and making music with children in refugee camps. Building on these experiences, Musicians Without Borders worked toward a long-term project in Srebrenica, with children from both sides of a cruel divide, which had separated Serbs (in the city) and Muslims (in refugee camps). This was a divide created by war and enforced by politics and bureaucracy. But music was a way to start to bridge it.
“This is what we believed,” Laura said. “that musicians don’t identify primarily by nationality or religion, but as musicians. We’ll find musicians in all war -torn regions who feel this way, as we do.”
In Srebrenica, scene of a 1995 massacre in which thousands were killed, MWB’s Music Bus became the organization’s first long-term project and an example of how music could help to rebuild a society shattered by war. With the Music Bus, Musicians Without Borders had established itself internationally. A short while later the organization was invited to Palestine to present its work. It also came to the attention of UNICEF and currently it works with local musicians in six countries — Kosovo, Palestine, Rwanda, Uganda, Northern Ireland and El Salvador — all of them torn apart by war and cultural division and suffering long-term consequences.
“In the beginning, people laughed at us,” she said. “We had no basis, no funding. But we had a vision. We struggled to make it for years. But every time we were about to go under, we survived.
“Every person has music in them!”
And the core and heart of Musicians Without Borders lays itself bare. This is the passion that drives it, that drives Laura, who grew up as a child of activist parents in a cooperative community, where “we were always making music. It was part of my life. I was always setting up singing groups and leading them.”
Every person has music in them, crying to be released. And, Laura believes, music is a healing force that can and must be used to move humanity past the damage it has been doing to itself ever since war and conquest became the global norm.
“There are different ways of experiencing music, as we all know,” she has written, “but also very different ideas about what music is. In European related cultures the dominant idea of music has, over history, become ‘something’ outside the person, to be taught and learned, practiced, perfected, held to a standard of quality and achievement.
“. . . a relatively few people are ‘artists,’ of whom a very few are ‘top artists’; but most of us are not — we’re listeners. And many listeners would tell you that they cannot make music.
“There is another way of perceiving music which many cultures, including earlier European cultures, share: that music is in the middle of all life, a basic element of being human, one that plays a continuous role in the life of the community and of every person in it. Inherent in this understanding of music is that, just like the capacity for language, music is part of our DNA and ‘doing’ music is part of human existence. It is what we do as we work, play, love, celebrate, suffer, mourn. You might say that we are music: from the rhythm of our heartbeat, our breath or our walking or dancing step, to the perception of tone everywhere in our lives, to the melody of our voices: music is in our bodies and in our spirits. . . . Music is a universally shared human trait, and all people have it in them.”
This is the future — a part of the enormous change pushing humanity beyond itself, beyond what it thinks it knows. Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, described this enormous becoming in a TED Talk: “It’s so new we can’t recognize it. We’re so familiar with armies and governments, wars, churches and religions. There’s no precedent for what we’re doing. . . .
“In the 20th Century: big ideologies stalked the earth, clad in armor. They fought for the control of our minds, of our land, and it wasn’t pretty.
“This movement is humanity’s immune response, to resist and heal political disease, economic infection and ecological corruption caused by ideologies. It is about possibilities and solutions. Humankind knows what to do.”
This movement . . . maybe it has a million pieces. We’re putting humanity back together in a new way, in a way that values Planet Earth and the soul of humanity. When Musicians Without Borders started becoming known, Laura said, she began receiving emails from musicians from all over the world, saying in essence: “Can I work with you? This is why I became a musician.”
Somehow I’m not surprised. The music’s in all of us. So is the desire to connect, to create peace, to save the world.
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Robert Koehler, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor.
