Get To Know Madison Baumgartner, Distinguished Young Woman of North Dakota 2017

Name: Madison Baumgartner

Age: 18

Hometown: Bismarck, North Dakota

College: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Major: Animal Science with a Pre-Vet emphasis

Favorite food: potatoes: fries, hash browns, tater-tots, baked, and more!

Favorite TV show: survivor, but I could never survive in the show :/

Current #1 most played song on your iPod: anything and everything country music

Favorite quote: “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” -unknown

Most hated household chore: I hate doing dishes so much.

Plan ahead OR procrastinate: definitely plan ahead!

Paper OR plastic: paper

Glass half-full OR glass half-empty: half-full!

Introvert OR extrovert: I feel like I’m in the middle but I lean more towards the introverted side

Cats OR Dogs: Cats all the way

Morning person OR night person: 100% a morning person (I have never hit snooze)

If you could be any color crayon, what would you be and why?

If I could be any color crayon I would be orange. There a few reasons for this: 1) my favorite color is orange because it just seems so bright and happy! 2) I will always be included in pictures of sunsets/sunrises which I think are super beautiful. 3) I would be a beautiful creation of red and yellow and can have so many different shades.

What would I find in your refrigerator right now (if you have one)?

Well first you would find a lot, and I mean A LOT, of chocolate even though I don’t really eat candy often. I just kept getting more as gifts. Secondly, you would find a large container of salsa because that is my favorite snack ever! Chips and salsa could be an everyday snack and I would never get sick of it. Thirdly, you would find coke and coke zero. Now, these are not my favorite kinds of pop (currently I am somewhat obsessed with mountain dew) but it was again another free gift that I took. Finally, my roommate has a weakness for hot foods so there will never be a shortage of hot sauce in our fridge.

If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would it be?

I, for some reason or another, have always been obsessed with life in the 1800’s. Being a homesteader at that time and just seeing what life was like would be amazing. I think it would be so eye opening to see life without any sort of modern conveniences like technology, running water, or stores. Of course, I probably would not want to switch places forever because that would be a little rough. Especially around the 1870’s when the grasshopper plague broke out. There is no way I want to see a cloud in the sky and realize that it is just a huge mass of bugs. So all in all, I would love to switch places with someone living the Homesteaders life for maybe a few months or so.

Sum yourself up in three words.

driven, independent, caring

What do you want to be when you grow up and why?

Ever since I was a little girl I aspired to become a veterinarian. Not only that, but my dream has grown to hopefully someday own my own practice as a veterinarian. This love and desire to help animals came from my roots. I was born and raised on a ranch in rural North Dakota. We have cattle, horses, sheep, goats, chickens, cats, dogs, rabbits, and more. Honestly, you name a common animal and I can almost guarantee that we have own it at some point. I would say the craziest one we have raised was bison. My favorite animals would have to be goats though. They are just so cute, especially as babies! Anyway, from this exposure and shadowing veterinarians, I came to the conclusion of what my passion in life was going to be.

Describe your single-most favorite moment from your Distinguished Young Women experience.

I would say my all-time favorite moment from Distinguished Young Women was that first night of competition as we were doing the opening number. That was just the exact moment when it kind of hit me just how far I’ve come personally in this organization. I also got to see all the people out in the crowd show their love and support for all of the girls up on stage with me! I just remember being in awe at how all of that hard work and dedication put into DYW payed off. Yes, the 4 hours of practice almost every day really sucked but it showed on the stage that we worked our butts off. I just kept looking over at other girls thinking if it hit them too. These were 50 other girls that I have gotten so close and it was bittersweet because I knew that meant in just a few days I was going to fly back and not see all of these amazing girls together again. Overall, Distinguished Young Women has given me so many amazing memories but my all-time favorite one was our opening number on the first night of preliminaries!