A quiet moment in the Tennessee Miller Coliseum on April 26th, the final day of 2009 IHSA Nationals. Our first Facebook discussion topic involves ones' favorite IHSA Nationals show.

CAMPUS EQUESTRIAN IS NOW ON FACEBOOK

It is common practice for IHSA teams to purchase 'Table Space' or 'Reserved Sections' at IHSA National shows. During the 2009 contest this writer sat down in the section reserved by Mount Holyoke College, and asked if they had any ideas on what Campus Equestrian might do during the summer months.

One suggestion was to create a blog that followed certain riders as they competed outside the IHSA during the summer. Not bad. Another mentioned that Campus Equestrian should go on Facebook and utilize some of that sites' features to help promote this site. Better.

As of June 13 Campus Equestrian has joined Facebook. Our official name on the Facebook site is "campusequestrian.com" so Facebook users hopefully can type campusequestrian.com in their 'search' box and find us right away (We hope to have a link from our homepage directly to our Facebook page within a few days if we can first work out a bug in the system - Editor).

Since we are still learning how to use Facebook the page will have its' share of kinks for the moment. Two things we really hope to utilize are the "Discussion" page and the Photos page. Our first discussion topic asks "If you attended more than one IHSA Nationals horse show, which one was your favorite?" We also hope to receive (or beg for) lots of old IHSA photos, preferably from the 20th century. Our dream is to post photos of every winning IHSA Nationals English and Western team since Fairleigh Dickinson's Madison Campus defeated the FDU Teaneck Campus in 1967 for the unofficial first high point team title.

Coming this fall there is a good chance we will post Video for the first time. It remains to be seen if this will be rider interviews, highlights of shows or something all together different (There may be modifications to the Campus Equestrian site allowing for video there as well).

In looking at various Facebook pages one idea hit us. Two riders who went to the same school appear to be engaged, which made us wonder if we should keep track of equestrian-related weddings somewhere on our site. This may be our next discussion topic!

Several IHSA teams appear to have their own Facebook pages, while the IHSA itself appears to have at least four! After viewing these sites it is obvious two are not 'official' IHSA pages though several others are good enough to appear to be the real thing! The IDA, IEA and Varsity/NCAA appear to be under-represented compared to the IHSA though several teams in each have started their own pages (sometimes for their membership only).

One last feature we will include is to alert viewers when we update the regular Campus Equestrian site. For example if we have posted a new story featuring the 2009 IHSA Western Team Competition we will announce this on our "Wall" (you will have to visit Facebook to understand what that means). If we add the Fall Show Schedule for Zone 3, Region 2 viewers on Facebook will see this. There will be exclusive content on the Facebook page not found on Campus Equestrian, though for the most part the actual web site will remain our bread and butter.

--Steve Maxwell