Students attend National FFA Convention

During the week of Oct. 27-31, the Fairfield FFA Chapter took six members to Louisville, Kentucky, for the National FFA Convention. The members who attended were Katlin Clemmons, Hannah Clubb, Celsey Horton, Hollie Nelson, Hunter Symmonds, and Mitchell Taglauer. Courtney Taglauer, FFA advisor, and Shawn Nelson, chaperone, also attended.

While members were there, they took tours around town. They went to the Louisville Slugger and watched the process of making baseball bats. Then they went to Churchill Downs and learned about the past Kentucky Derby winners and watched the horses in their morning practice. The members? last tour was the Louisville Zoo, where they walked around and looked at all the animals.

While at the convention, FFA members watched a couple of the sessions, and listened to a few motivational speakers, such as Rick Rigsby and Brad Montague, creator of Kid President.

Members also got to meet Amber Lee Synder, a paralyzed barrel racer, who spoke at one of the sessions.

Current national FFA officers give their retiring addresses.

When members were not attending sessions, they walked through the Career Show, visiting booths from Becks, Orscheln?s, John Deere, TSC, Monsanto, Sea World, Carhartt, Case, and many other agricultural companies and organizations that gave out information and held fun activities and contests for members to learn more about them. Members also visited the FFA shopping mall, the Agriscience Fair, and the Hall of States.

The FFA members who went on the trip said they enjoyed going through the tours throughout the town. They also said they liked the sessions and listening to the motivational speakers.

The Fairfield FFA members decided to have a contest, to see who could find the most FFA members from other states. The six members had fun participating in this, and almost all were able to get signatures of an FFA member from all 50 states. More than 65,000 FFA members, advisors, parents, and guests were in attendance at this year?s convention.