What is MACHS?
First of all, MACHS stands for Mid America Collegiate Horticultural Society. To make a long story short, MACHS consists of student horticultural organizations from schools throughout the Midwest. In other words it is just one big hort club with members from all over the place. Simple enough?
What does MACHS do?
One of the functions of MACHS is to have an annual conference. It is in March around (or during) spring break depending on where you happen to attend school. At this annual conference there are a number of items that *have* to take place, and there are also a bunch of events that take place for fun. Some of the mandatory items include: plant identification, horticultural judging, general hort knowledge test, business meeting, and a banquet/dance. Don't worry, all of these things are for fun and you do not get graded! The school with the highest scores does win prizes, however... Some of the fun things we did at MACHS in past years include: bowling, MACHS olympics (oops, did we forget to participate in that?), a trip to Minneapolis/St. Paul to visit a huge garden center, a large wholesale nursery, and of course the Mall of America (to check out the interiorscape, mind you, we would never want to shop or ride their roller coaster). So anyway, that is some of what goes on.