Never felt better...!!!

My time with Ads Club is nearing an end, but it is definitely bittersweet. This weekend was the NSAC (National Student Advertising Competition) for our district in Dayton, Ohio. We had built a campaign for YAHOO! and had to compete against 9 other universities from KY, Ohio and West Virginia (which includes: University of Kentucky, Western Kentucky University, Marshal University, Xavier University, John Caroll University, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Youngston University, West Virginia University and Ohio University). Our university is one of the smaller schools, one of the few that has their project done solely as a club and has probably one of the smallest number of students working on the project.

Our campaign was fantastic and our team worked super hard, i don't think i could ever thank them enough. So we watched the other schools do their presentations and everyone did okay, nothing really stood out as being super fantastic so we felt confident. We got up after lunch to do ours and we had a small technical error at the beginning, but our team recovered very well. The judges really seemed to like our campaign, during the Q&A portion of the competition they sort of told us they loved it but wanted us to push the creative a little bit further. Sometimes it was hard to tell if they were actually asking us questions or just giving us constructive critisism... so that was good b/c they weren't like "i don't understand." :)

So we watched a few more presentations and still nothing really stood out from the rest and we felt confident (and nervous) going into the awards ceremony. I don't think I ever want to feel that type of nervousness ever again, i had to have a team member hold my hand i was so freaked out. I think i was just really nervous b/c we all knew it was anybodys game... Now at the awards ceremony they only announce the Top 4 schools (6-10 don't get anything) but 4-2 get plaques and the 1st place gets a trophy. So the guy says ................. "And in FOURTH PLACE....... MURRAY STATE UNIVERSITY!!!" WE FREAKED OUT!!! Seriously, we were the happiest 4th place team you'd ever meet. Now you're probably wondering why we were so excited about 4th place... well in MSU's 15 years of doing this competition we've only placed 2 other times, and both 4th. So it was a big deal to actually place. But what came next was surprising.... 3rd = Western Kentucky University, 2nd = West Virginia University, and 1st = John Carrol University. They all did fine, not amazingly better than us, and we're anxious to see the points to see how close it really was between the top 4. But the MOST AMAZING part was WE BEAT UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY!!!!!!!! This is a team of SIXTY members that has won the past 2 years in a row (plus a ton of other times). IT FELT GREAT! Plus we beat OHIO UNIVERSITY with their EIGHTY members. I think it just so hard for the smaller schools to win this because there isn't the man power, or the funds to do what the large schools can. So to beat them felt amazing.... now what felt bad was the team from UK this year was SUPER NICE, they couldn't have been more supportive... so we did feel they deserved a sportsmanship award :)

So that was the culmination of my ads club presidency, and my three years as a member. I feel great. I had such a blast working on this campaign and with these people. I'll never forget any of them and I only hope the members who will be working on next years project take with them the enthusiasm and pride in what they do. If they work hard enough they can beat the large schools that we for so long thought were impossible to beat.

So i'm going to end on a happy note, b/c this was such a happy weekend. To all twelve of my other team members THANK YOU!