Don't forget to start rounding up your friends before your first big show this year and get your RYTT team together. Start by grabbing an entry form off the website, filling it out and sending your $10 team entry fee. Contact your Regional Youth Team Tournament Secretaries or AHA for more questions!

2009 Creative Contest theme is 'Arabian - A Different Kind of Animal.' Think: Arabians disguised as lions, tigers and leopards, or Arabians traveling thought the jungle with monkeys and wildlife all around! Enter unlimited categories for just $10. Compete in Creative Writing, Art, Photography, Computer-Generated, and Audio-Visual. Entries are due by June 1st. You can download your form and read all about the Creative Contest rules on ArabianHorses.org/youth. It's never too soon to get started on all of those awesome projects we receive each year!

The entire Youth Board had a wonderful time in Colorado the first weekend of the month! For many of the Board members, this was their first visit to Denver. Youth Board knocked out a lot of big topics in their meeting Saturday pertaining to the AHYA Convention and Youth Nationals! At lunch, the Board was able to meet with the AHA Board of Directors and the Executive Committee. This gave our Youth Board an outstanding opportunity to compare their region's youth involvement with other regions from across the country.

To find out more details from the meeting check out the Presidents Corner on the youth section of the website later this month.

If you think that you might be interested in running for AHYA office, please submit your AHYA officer candidate application today! Technically, candidate applications aren't due until June 15, but if you would like to start your campaign now you can submit your application and be posted on the website so that delegates all over can get to know you before Convention in July!

For election procedures and more information on AHYA, refer to the AHYA Constitution, Chapter 25 of your AHA Handbook, before submitting your application.

We got your piggies, your stick horses, Hippology and more planned for the 2009 Youth National Arabian and Half-Arabian Championship Horse Show. Your AHYA Board is looking for activity and t-shirt sponsors. Think it would be cool to have your barn listed on the back of all of those qualifier t-shirts? Or maybe your family would like to sponsor a Stick Horse Workshop? Download a Youth Activity Sponsorship form today from the AHYA website by clicking here.

Have you checked out how many friends and fans AHYA has on MySpace and Facebook these days? Come check it out!

Celebrity horse teacher, Craig Cameron has selected AHA member Joyce Lewis for his Extreme Cowboy Race All Girl Challenge. The race is scheduled for October 22 and 23 in Bluffdale, TX. and The Extreme Cowboy Race spans 15, 30-minute episodes with each episode featuring horse-and-rider teams as they complete the course. The new season will begin Monday March 4 on RFD-TV with new episodes premiering each week. Episodes will also be available on HorseCity.com to view by those who do not get RFD-TV. You can read more about Joyce, Khamaal AB and the Extreme Cowboy Race on the AHYA website!

• St. Patrick's Day is a national holiday in Ireland, and a provincial holiday in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
• St. Patrick was born in 385 AD somewhere along the west coast of Britain, possibly in the Welsh town of Banwen. At age 16, he was captured and sold into slavery to a sheep farmer. He escaped when he was 22 and spent the next 12 years in a monastery. In his 30s he returned to Ireland as a Christian missionary. He died at Saul in 461 AD and is buried at Downpatrick.
• In Ireland on St. Patrick's Day, people traditionally wear a small bunch of shamrocks on their jackets or caps. Children wear orange, white and green badges, and women and girls wear green ribbons in their hair.
• In Chicago, the Chicago River is dyed green with a special dye that only lasts a few hours.
• The harp is the symbol of Ireland. The color green is also commonly associated with Ireland, also known as "the Emerald Isle."
• 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry, according to the 2003 US Census. That's almost nine times the population of Ireland, which has 4.1 million people.
• The name "lephrechaun" has several origins. It could be from the Irish Gaelic word "leipreachan," which means "a kind of aqueous sprite." Or, it could be from "leath bhrogan," which means "shoemaker."
• According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest number of leaves found on a clover is 14!
• One estimate suggests that there are about 10 000 regular three-leaf clovers for every lucky four-leaf clover.
• Legend says that each leaf of the clover means something: the first is for hope, the second for faith, the third for love and the fourth for luck.