FFJ Meets FFA

Recently my family and I hosted a FFJ student from Engei High School. Nervous and excited we picked Yuriko up. My first thoughts were, oh my goodness, she speaks Japanese and I speak English, this is gonna be a long and quiet car ride home. Quickly I learned that the language barrier wasn’t that big of a deal and the car ride home was fun. With the help of hand motions, sounds, expressions, and the use of her portable computer translator it was easy to carry on conversations. It didn’t take long before Yuri and I bonded.

As her first day of school approached we were both very nervous for her first day at an American high school. When we got there, she kept saying, “Dokey dokey,” which is the Japanese word meaning her heart was beating fast, but that soon went away. She soon trusted me and if she didn’t understand what someone was asking her, she would look at me with an expression of confusion that seemed to shout, “Please help me understand.” I would in turn translate what they were saying in simpler English.

Even though she was 3 years older than me, I felt as if I was her older sister guiding her through a new experience. As I was teaching her new words she was teaching me new Japanese words. I would write down the word and the English translation on a piece of paper so I would remember them if I needed help. I was slowly but surely speaking a very little bit of Japanese. I’ve learned that even though we are from two different countries and we speak two different languages we are so much alike, and we share our sense of humor. Besides speaking Japanese, she was just like any other American teenager. I would advise anyone who hasn’t had this opportunity to quickly ask to host a student from Japan or any other country, because regardless, the experience is still the same. It was a life changing week that I’ll never forget and will cherish forever. Yuri has become a member of my family who lives miles away, and someone whom I, my friends, and my family have grown to love.

-Karlyn Wolfe
Rosewood FFA

National Officer Visits and Livestock Judging with Caroline Tart

After MEGA we didn’t stop going. We headed east to Raleigh and treated the National Officers to some good ol' Smithfield’s Chicken and Barbeque. Not being North Carolina natives, chicken and barbeque was a delicacy to them and they really seemed to enjoy it. Upon finishing our meal, we headed to the FFA office and unloaded everything from the van. We thought that the National Officers would enjoy a tour of Raleigh, so we shuffled them around campus and then decided that Pullen Park would make a nice walk. This was also a treat for me because it was my first time going to Pullen Park since it had been renovated. We were excited to ride the water boats, however we got in touch with our inner child when we discovered that the paddle boats were closed and had a great time riding the carousel. After riding the carousel we moseyed around for a bit and enjoyed hearing stories and random adventures from Seth, Jason and Wyatt. Following the park we took them to their first trip to Bojangles. They had heard the hype and were finally ready to try the real thing. Fortunately they weren’t disappointed. We ate and then it was time to take Wyatt to the airport. It was a sad moment, leaving someone we’d grown to see as a good friend, but we know we'll see him again soon. Wyatt can’t seem to stay away from the tractor beam that’s constantly pulling him back to North Carolina.

 Our goodbyes with Wyatt said and done, we took Jason and Seth on the scenic route back to their hotel for the night. The next morning they were up bright and early doing school visits to some of our amazing FFA members here in North Carolina. That afternoon however, Jason joined us for an amazing visit with the Chancellor of NC State. The State Officers haven’t visited with the chancellor in a very long time, if ever. So for us to receive this opportunity was an honor and a blessing. The chancellor had some inspiring words and great things to say about the future of education and agriculture education. One thing that I asked Chancellor Woodson was what is one of his favorite NCSU traditions? We agreed that since our class rings spend a night in the bell tower before you get them, that was pretty neat, but also said one of his favorites was when past generations pin their children at the annual pinning ceremony for freshmen. It was great to hear all about his experiences from Purdue to NC State. It was also great to hear that he is an avid supporter of the North Carolina FFA Association. After that visit we went our separate ways until we met up at the Flying Biscuit in Cameron Village for dinner. Seth was still out gallivanting with Mr. Bledsoe, so we went and picked him up once we finished eating and we all headed to Sweet Frog frozen yogurt for dessert. We shared stories of the day and adventures of the past. We decided to conclude the evening testing our trivia knowledge and play trivia at the Tart household, sad to say though John, Beverly, and Ashley were the winners of that game.

The next morning we all woke up bright and early and headed out to Livestock Judging at the Hunt Horse Complex. I was personally super excited about this because I never got to attend livestock judging in high school, so I was grateful for the opportunity now. We helped set up and hung out before FFA members started pouring in!! We got to see some familiar faces from MEGA and then some that we hadn’t seen in forever!! It was a great feeling.

Shortly after the competition started and everyone was intently concentrating - going from pen to pen and analyzing every little part of each animal, it was amazing to see the FFA members in the zone and so focused. Around 11, we broke and everyone ate lunch. This was my favorite part, not just because we got food, but because we were then allowed to talk to the FFA members who were, up until that point, competing.  I enjoyed every minute of it and wish we had more time to catch up with them all. They got back to work and we started grading. We worked diligently until around 4 o’clock grading and sorting through cards. We then departed for the office so that we could scan all the scores. However, before heading back to we had to say goodbye to one of the National Officers, Mr. Seth Pratt. We really enjoyed having him here for the week; he was inspirational and really reached out to NC FFA members. After that we scored and then took Jason out for his last dinner in North Carolina. As a group, we decided to go to Red Robin...YUM! It was a good time full of laughter and fellowship. We filled our tummies and then said our goodbyes to National FFA Officer, Jason Troendle. Saying goodbye is always hard. We had a blast getting to know his unique personality and hearing his amazing stories. We hope to see those two again sometime in the future, we appreciate their time and passion to the National FFA organization. After saying our goodbyes we headed our separate ways, filled with joy, from a great day full of quality people, and quality programs. Thank you NC FFA for making our days so enjoyable!

Caroline Tart Outlines Her MEGA Experience

Is this real life? That was the constant feeling that I kept having during the weekend of March 23^rd. I have had this feeling many times throughout the year, but it was evident this weekend. It was our first and last MEGA conference as state officers, and we were so excited! We made our way down to Greensboro on Friday night, got started preparing, and met the two National Officers that would be joining for the weekend, Seth Pratt and Jason Troendle. And, not only did we get to have two national officers, but we also had a past national officer, Mr. Wyatt DeJong! Well, just because they were visiting they did not get out of some work. We put them to work blowing up balloons, making balloon animals, and helping decorate our workshop rooms before they headed to bed. After we got our 200 balloons blown up for the workshop we decided that we would take a break and cheer on our beloved Wolfpack. The game did not end how we wanted, but we still cheered with all our hearts. We went over our workshop and then headed to bed, thrilled about the weekend that we were about to embark upon.

The next morning we woke up, put on our snazzy official dress and headed down to the ballroom to practice our morning session. Shortly after, when the members started making their way to the hotel we could really feel the excitement build for the weekend. We hung out for a bit, chatted, and saw all our friends that we've missed so much. Finally, the time had arrived. We began with opening ceremonies and got the conference kicked off. Beverly and I, along with our fellow Over the Top members had tons of fun Saturday learning about resumes, job interviews, etiquette, image, social media, and organization involvement after high school. We had a scavenger hunt, YouTube videos, blindfolds, magazines, balloon towers, and even some ice cream. To end the workshop on a high note, we went out with a bang by popping all 200 of our balloons. It was definitely over the top!

 The fun didn’t stop Saturday night. We had a lovely banquet where this year’s delegate issues were revealed.  We were also joined by some of our past State Officers from North Carolina from 1929-1971. It was an amazing night to be a part of North Carolina FFA. After our banquet, we had two more workshops before we could get ready to boogie down at the annual MEGA Conference dance, with DJ JT3. It was a night full of dancing and excitement. After vespers we reviewed the next day’s itinerary and then hit the hay.

Sunday came quickly and breakfast came early, but a morning session with a keynote from Mr. Jason Troendle was more than enough to get everyone enthused for our last day of MEGA. A talented and very inspirational speaker, Jason entertained us with stories of fishing with his sister and the lessons he learned growing up. After that we went to our last workshops of MEGA '12.  The ending, as with most endings, was a little bittersweet.  I can’t explain the impact that the Over the Top group made on my life. Each and every member stepped out of their comfort zone and encouraged me to step out of mine, and for that I want to say thank you! Also, thank you to all the wonderful FFA members that attended. You’re the ones that made this MEGA '12 the most amazing and endearing conference yet. Thank you for that, and I can’t wait to be reunited with everyone at State Convention!

Alyssa Ramsey's Reasons for Loving Livestock Juding

At the Madison FFA Chapter, the Livestock Evaluation CDE is a big deal.  Every year our advisor would start the first practices around November and we would go hard until contest time.  We would show up rockin’ our blue blazer and spittin’ some mad reasons.  Somehow, however, I missed the bandwagon on this one.  I never took the opportunity to attend the Livestock Judging CDE in high school, so just imagine how excited I was to welcome in almost 150 Junior and Senior teams to the event!  The day was full of surprises.  I got to drive Beverly’s beast of a truck, honked Katie’s Duke’s of Hazzard horn and got to see a lot of FFA members I hadn’t seen in a while!

It always amazes me who you run into at some of our state’s events.  There are those we are just getting to meet for the first time, standing in line for barbeque, getting psyched to give a set of reasons, or a few middle schoolers there just to try and figure out what the contest is all about!  Then, there are those members we haven’t seen in awhile.  Maybe they were in our small group at SLC, competed in a contest earlier in the year or we were lucky enough to come to there school during FFA week!  And still again, there would be some members our team had just spent all weekend with at MEGA, we were getting to see them that day, and we would see later that week at Land Judging!  No matter what, it was a good day to connect!  Especially since we don’t play a big role in the activities until it’s time to round up score cards.

Since we weren’t tied up with judging until the end of the day, that meant the rest of the time we weren’t running errand for event staff, we had to find our own entertainment.  Earlier I mentioned the excitement of running into old friends we haven’t seen in awhile; I ran into a few of my own.  Somehow, three girls who were in my small group at White Lake ended up in the same rotation group.  After they finished their reasons, we laughed and giggled waiting for the next rotation, but we also devised a diabolical plot.  We had a vision of starting a wave all around the arena!  FFA members going crazy!  Blasting music over the intercom!  However, the reality of this being a cut-throat competition, beat us back into our seats, where we continued to quietly visit so that we would not disturb anyone...

In just a short matter of time, the rotation ended and it was time for my friends to move on.  I waved them TTFN and it was time find more fun stuff to do.  I migrated to the center of the arena, where I found most of my team standing with our interns and two very special guests, two national officers.  Jason and Seth had been with us for about a week now, so they had become part of our family.  They both shared stories of their year of service that inspired us to keep pushing to make everyday of ours better, but mostly they made us laugh.  Our whole team was very fortunate to have spent time with two such wonderful people and can’t wait until we can see our friends again someday.

Throughout our state officer year, there have been a lot of comings and goings, hellos to new people and good-byes to old friends; many connections have been made.  Though the Livestock CDE is about applying the technical skills as well as the life skills we have been able to learn in our agriculture classrooms, for me March 27, 2012 was all about coming together as FFA members and connecting at one of organization’s oldest contest that helped start it all!

Respectfully Submitted,

Alyssa Ramsey

North Carolina FFA Association

State Vice President 2011-2012

Hannah Russell Breaks Down MEGA 2012

MEGA 2012 is here!!! As we loaded up the van and picked up two of the National FFA officers, it was time to head to Greensboro, North Carolina where we would meet some pretty awesome FFA members and present FFA workshops! As a team we all ate pizza, fixed our workshop rooms and finished just in time to watch the NCSU basketball game against Kansas. As we watched NCSU lose the game it was time to head on to bed and get excited that over 300 FFA members will soon be in Greensboro to participate in MEGA 2012, and broadcast success! The first general session started out right with opening session and the introduction of all the workshops. Katie and I had the Chapter Presidents Conference, Beverly and Caroline had the Over the Top workshops, John and Alyssa had the spring training workshops and then we had National Staff come in and hold the 212 and 360 workshops. Everyone seemed to have an amazing time!

 In the chapter presidents conference they were there to plan and decide the top four issues that would be brought up at the 2012 North Carolina State Convention and to represent over 18,564 FFA members all over North Carolina! Every time the session would open we had them participate in the Minute to Win it games. We learned about parliamentary procedure and made Chex Mix, parliamentary procedure style! In the Over the Top workshop they had an amazing time learning about where FFA can take students after high school. And within the spring training workshops, the students who participated would understand the process of running for State FFA Office! We had an amazing time getting to know the FFA members this week and hope that they can take something back to their chapters and cannot wait to see you at STATE CONVENTION!!!!!!!!!!!

Katie Cauthen's FFA Week

FFA Week is one of the most meaningful times as an FFA member. It is a week when we as an organization come together to prove the importance of agriculture in some of the most original and wackiest ways possible. A week of pure fun!

            For us ladies on the team, our FFA week began at Grange Youth Leadership Conference at Camp Caraway. There, we spent the weekend with some great youth doing different activities and sharing lessons on leadership and teamwork.

            After a day full of class on Monday (I guess we have to learn sometime), I was stoked for an early morning at Hobbton High School on Tuesday. There, an alumni chapter was officially chartered to provide essential and much needed support to their chapter! The members had the cafeteria beautifully decorated with FFA memorabilia and prepared an amazing country breakfast for the chapter, advisors, and guests. 

           After fellowship and a full stomach, the team split and Beverly and I made our way towards Southern Wayne High. With an hour or two to spare, we decided to make our rounds in the small town of Mount Olive. There’s always a Wal-Mart in sight, and so we stocked up on workshop supplies. After grabbing lunch, we visited Mount Olive College, the local Piggly Wiggly, and the Mount Olive Pickle Plant...we were definitely not your typical tourists in our official dress!

            Touring aside, we moved on to Southern Wayne. We spent a few minutes seeing what the students were working on in the shop before beginning our workshop. All of our activities from the saran wrap group obstacle course, to having to tie a string in a knot as a team, aimed to emphasize the power of leadership and teamwork.
            From Southern Wayne, we moved on to Triton High for the HarLee Federation Leadership Conference. Beverly and I chose the theme of “In Your Heart” for our workshop, and had a great time writing thank you notes alongside the members. We certainly had a lot of people to thank after all these amazing visits, not to mention two of the boys from Triton. They pledged that if at least 50 members came to the event, they would shave their heads...you can tell by the photo that the turnout was successful. What devotion to the FFA!

           A busy Tuesday over, Beverly, Caroline, and I traveled to West Montgomery for a full day of activities on Wednesday. We wanted to give the kids a little taste of FFA opportunities and the value of teamwork. We saw their pigs and goats, did some pretty awesome egg drops, and completed word scrambles. After a great day spent with all three of their classes, we grabbed some pizza and homemade cupcakes before heading back to Raleigh.

            My FFA week activities ended with possibly one of the most fulfilling activities state officers get to participate in. On Friday, Hannah, Beverly, Alyssa and I joined Mr. Davis on the long trek to Columbia High and Middle School. There, we not only got a chance to see the awesome new welding booths and greenhouse, but we also got to spend some time with members sharing ideas and opportunities within the FFA. As soon as we arrived, we got all of the middle school members together to sign their official charter. At the end of the day, we did the same with the high school members. It seems like something so simple, and happens so quickly, but the chartering of an FFA chapter means that others value agriculture and leadership, and wish to pass it on to future generations.
          This is what FFA week is all about. Yes, it’s a good excuse to dress crazy or drive a muddy truck or tractor to school, but it is also an amazing opportunity to advocate for FFA. More than half a million members all across the country, all sharing their stories and building memories for a lifetime, all in one week...pretty amazing, huh?!