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Agriculture Education Grad Enjoying Internship at Disney’s Epcot Center

Sara Pope Is Working as Plant Science Intern Super Bowl MVPs are famous for answering the question about their plans for after the big game: "I'm going to DisneyWorld!" Sara Pope literally said the same thing after graduating from Wilmington College in December. PICTURED: Sara Pope poses in front of the iconic Cinderella Castle. But unlike Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and other Super Bowl champions, Pope's Disney experience is much longer than the few days in the sun these football stars spent there. She is in the midst of a six-month, plant science internship at The Land of Epcot. Pope is a cum laude graduate from Lawrenceburg, Ind., with majors in agriculture policy and education. Dr. Monte Anderson, professor of agriculture and her academic adviser, planted the seed about her potentially interning at Epcot. She said the opportunity to continue learning about agriculture by working in such a high-profile greenhouse operation especially appealed to her. "At The Land of Epcot, I also have the opportunity to educate guests about our facilities and the variety of plants we grow, which is one of my favorite parts about the internship," she said, noting the experience runs from January through June. The Walt Disney Company opened Epcot in central Florida in 1982 as a companion theme park resort to the wildly popular Walt DisneyWorld. Epcot is the acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Elements of the utopian city of the future planned by Walt Disney are evident in Pope's work in building the food capacity for feeding guests dining throughout the Disney properties, along with many animals featured in Animal Kingdom. Sara in the greenhouse"I am continuously learning about new crops and methods of growing in a greenhouse setting," she said. "I am also learning about what it takes to keep show greenhouses looking beautiful while producing an abundance of fresh produce." Pope said the experience is shaping her career aspirations, which currently lean toward work in the agriculture industry or as an agriculture educator. "I am looking forward to seeing where life takes me!" Pope praises her Wilmington College education as "an enriching hands-on learning experience" in which she had the opportunity to explore many career paths and develop leadership skills through involvement in extra-curricular activities and organizations. Indeed, she was the student leader for several excursions to Washington, D.C., in which agriculture students learned about advocacy through lobbying their elected representatives on issues important to rural communities and the agriculture industry, which is among Ohio's largest and most vital. "All of these outside-the-classroom experiences enhanced my education and prepared me for a career in agriculture," she added. "They introduced me to a variety of agriculture organizations, as well as industry professionals who shared insight into their respective companies and organizations." As for now, Pope's wintering in central Florida as a plant science intern at Epcot is an endeavor that should pay dividends for a lifetime — both in opening doors to her career choices and for imparting wisdom from experience to her future students or others she encounters in the agriculture industry.