Tracie (Schwenck) Luedtke, 1994
University of Wisconsin-Madison
I live in Beaver Dam, Wis., with my husband, Jason, and our three children: Alexis, Cassandra and Max. I currently work part-time for AgEdNet.com, an online agriculture curriculum service, in customer relations and editing of lesson materials. I also work part-time for J.W. Jung Seed Company as a seasonal employee in their Randolph Garden Center.
When I am not working, I enjoy spending time with my family. I am a parent volunteer and assistant track coach at my children's school, and am active in the 4-H program as a member of the Dodge County 4-H Leaders' Association Executive Board and our local 4-H club's flowers and houseplants project leader. I am also an Association of Women in Agriculture (AWA) alumni member, and spent two years on the AWA Corporation Board as the Advancement Chair, working to increase our alumni and associate memberships.
The internship helped strengthen my writing and interviewing skills and allowed me to see firsthand the teamwork it takes to publish a magazine. I learned about deadlines and the need to write in a tighter format to fit the column space.
Following the internship, I had a better understanding of the direction I wanted to take with my agricultural journalism degree. That helped me choose which courses to sign up for during my final two years of college.
The experience of writing the Farm Flashes column and feature articles for Hoard's Dairyman helped me to land my first job right out of college as the news editor for AgEdNet.com. In that position, I was responsible for developing a daily feature of short news items for subscribing schools and editing lesson plans.
