National FFA Week Projects at Pine Grove High School

Heard It On The Shark

About Us: Business owners, Chamber directors, industry leaders, Main Street Directors, school and hospital leaders discuss what's happening in North MS with station owner, Melinda Marsalis. Interviews are recorded in Ripley, MS at Sun Bear Studio, broadcast every Tuesday at 11 am on The Shark 102.3 FM Radio and added here to help you stay informed. If you would like to be considered for an interview, you can call or email Melinda. The Shark 102.3 FM Radio Station and Sun Bear Studio, located in Ripley, MS, are owned by Chris and Melinda Marsalis. Chris and Melinda have a passion for community development and love all of the amazing things that are going on in North Mississippi.

This Week: In this episode, Melinda talks with Byron Lopez, a senior at Pine Grove High School as well as a team member at The Shark 102.3. Byron is multi-talented but primarily works with the social media postings and monitoring community events announced on the Community Calendar updates each Tuesday and Thursday 4 p.m. In addition to finishing his senior year, Byron is also currently serving as the FFA Officer Coordinator at Pine Grove Chapter. He credits many of the leadership opportunities and experiences he has had through FFA as great preparation for the job he is doing now, especially on the communication end of things.

National FFA Week is recognized February 18-24 and it is a time to celebrate the chapter's overall achievements as well as highlight many of the cool things they do in the school and local community. This year, the FFA annual school-wide service project is a canned food drive with all donations going to the Food Bank at the Tippah County-based Good Samaritan Center. The Pine Grove FFA Chapter Officers will also conduct a service project geared toward the residents at Diversicare, a local nursing home. The officers will create and deliver care packages for the residents and each package includes lotion, lip care products, comfy socks, and a Word Search activity book. In addition to these service projects, FFA leads many fun events and fundraisers for the school.

Students as young as 8 years old or third grade can join FFA and can continue in FFA even after graduating high school. There are many leadership opportunities for members through their school years. Because of his experience in FFA and the leadership opportunities he has gained, Byron even plans to run for a state officer position later this spring. He also plans to be a part of the collegiate chapter of FFA at Mississippi State University when he starts attending there this fall.

Any listener who would like to donate to either of this year's service projects may take Word Search puzzle books, new packages of adult-sized socks, or canned non-perishable food to Pine Grove School or drop items off at The Shark 102.3 and JC Media office on the north side of The Square in Ripley.

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Welcome to HEARD IT ON THE SHARK with your show host Melinda Marsalis and show sponsor, Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area. HEARD IT ON THE SHARK is a weekly interview show that airs every Tuesday at 11 am on the shark 102.3 FM radio station based in Ripley, MS and then is released as a podcast on all the major podcast platforms. You’ll hear interviews with the movers and shakers in north Mississippi who are making things happen. Melinda talks with entrepreneurs, leaders of business, medicine, education, and the people behind all the amazing things happening in north Mississippi. When people ask you how did you know about that, you’ll say, “I HEARD IT ON THE SHARK!” HEARD IT ON THE SHARK is brought to you by the Mississippi Hills National Heritage area. We want you to get out and discover the historic, cultural, natural, scenic and recreational treasures of the Mississippi Hills right in your backyard. And of course we want you to take the shark 102.3 FM along for the ride.

Bounded by I-55 to the west and Highway 14 to the south, the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area, created by the United States Congress in 2009 represents a distinctive cultural landscape shaped by the dynamic intersection of Appalachian and Delta cultures, an intersection which has produced a powerful concentration of national cultural icons from the King of Rock’n’Roll Elvis Presley, First Lady of Country Music Tammy Wynette, blues legend Howlin’ Wolf, Civil Rights icons Ida B. Wells-Barnett and James Meredith, America’s favorite playwright Tennessee Williams, and Nobel-Laureate William Faulkner. The stories of the Mississippi Hills are many and powerful, from music and literature, to Native American and African American heritage, to the Civil War. The Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area supports the local institutions that preserve and share North Mississippi’s rich history. Begin your discovery of the historic, cultural, natural, scenic, and recreational treasures of the Mississippi Hills by visiting the Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area online at mississippihills.org.

Musical Credit to: Garry Burnside - Guitar; Buddy Grisham - Guitar; Mike King - Drums/Percussion

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