MECHANICSBURG – Hailey Shoemaker, a 2015 graduate of Mechanicsburg High School and current student at The Ohio State University, will study in Brazil for six weeks. A second-year Meat Science major, she was accepted last year into Alpha Zeta Partners, an agricultural honorary at OSU that values leadership, agriculture, development, citizenship, scholarship and service. Once accepted into the honorary, students go through four seminars in a variety of locations around the world to help develop leadership skills and aptitude to make change. One of these seminars is a six-week study in Brazil. While there, students take economics, agriculture and history classes at the University of Sao Paulo and take agriculture-related field trips.

Shoemaker pursued sponsorships from Champaign County families and business to offset costs of her trip. She will share her experiences in Brazil with the community, including local FFA chapters and students, when she returns.

Those who contributed toward her trip include Farmer’s Daughter Restaurant in Urbana, Pizza Alley/Goshen Lanes in Mechanicsburg, Koenig Equipment in Urbana, an anonymous donor from the Mechanicsburg/Urbana area, and Weidmann Electrical Technology in Urbana.