By Monday afternoon, I knew I was going to have one heck of a busy day on Tuesday.

There was the typical Nobles County Board meeting in the morning, of course (to which one person in the audience asked me if I’d drawn the short stick!) Um, no … this is one of the constant joys of my job, I responded with a smile.

When I walked out of the board room two and a half hours later, I was beginning to think perhaps we should draw straws twice a month in the newsroom for the honor. Then again, I think maybe not … for fear fellow reporter Laura Grevas would want to implement the same system for Worthington City Council and District 518 Board of Education.

Speaking of the Board of Education, I was assigned to cover my first school board meeting in more than six years on Tuesday. Since joining the Daily Globe, I had never been needed to fill in for the education beat reporter.

I guess there’s a first time for everything, though, especially when Laura had a special City Council meeting to attend on the same night!

The school board meeting wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be … and I don’t mean that in a negative way! I was more concerned about understanding the issues and writing the story accurately. I guess I’ll find out soon enough if I messed something up!

In between the two board meetings, I visited Prairie Holdings Group to discuss news coming from Newport Labs regarding the H1N1 novel influenza virus. You will find in the story I wrote for today’s Daily Globe that the company has a vaccine to guard against the virus in swine. Now we need the USDA to approve it so it can be mass-produced for our nation’s pork producers.

Some day, I’d like to tour the entire PHG operation and learn about all of the work they are doing out there to benefit our livestock industry. I find the work fascinating, and it makes me wish I had paid more attention in some of my science classes.

Among the college-educated reporters in the newsroom, I am the only one with a Bachelor of Science degree – which basically means I suffered through two semesters of biology, and a semester each of chemistry and physics. I’m pretty sure all of my agriculture classes fell under the science umbrella as well.

The rest of my newsroom cohorts have Bachelor of Arts degrees … they had the literature, creative writing and advanced composition classes. I don’t think those qualify as classes one has to "suffer through," but I’m sure there are people out there who would disagree (two of my nieces among them!)

During a little newsroom chat Tuesday afternoon, we joked about our BA’s and BS’s – there’s other terms for both, you know. When I said them aloud, editor Ryan giggled at me … "Julie swore … hehe."

I’d hardly call that swearing, but it’s always good to share a little humor on such a hectic day!