Our speaker this week was Genevieve Osborn, first female from South Dakota to officiate a State Class AA Football Championship. Genevieve shared her background story of adversity living on Pine Ridge Reservation, and dealing with jurisdictional and custody battles that caused her to move and attend several different schools over a span of 12 years. She admits that the adversity, hard work and setting goals helped to get where she is today.Her introduction into officiating began in 2012 when she was asked to officiate basketball by a middle school colleague. Her officiating resume is impressive as a female, but also part of the 1st indigenous all female crew to work the AA high school game (2018) and 1st State Basketball Tournament (2019); 1st all female crew at a RMAC college game (2020); and officiated at a championship game as crew chief on the 50th anniversary of Title IX. In 2023 she was asked to officiate football and after five camps, she became the first female in the history of South Dakota to officiate at a class 9 AA high school football championship. While being the first woman to officiate a football championship was special, she wants to be judged on her skills and looks forward to every opportunity to help women break barriers. She is employed as a public accountant and can be seen officiating at many high school and college basketball games in South Dakota.