Tractor to Truck, Trafalgar to D.C... It's National Ag Week!

     National Ag Week...  Seven days to celebrate our nation's agricultural pursuits and all those people who work to keep us fed, fueled, and clothed.  As FFA State Officers, we are blessed with the opportunity to serve as ambassadors for agriculture and agricultural education on a daily basis, but this nation-wide event adds some extra events and some extra excitement!
     This morning Gianna Hartman and I got to take two of our teammates, Rachel Schmitt and Ross Newton, to the airport.  They are headed to Washington, D.C. with Indiana Farm Bureau to celebrate National Ag Day and to meet with our senators and their representatives.  I'm sure that they will have a great time and represent us well, and I can't wait to hear more from them!
     The rest of the team, myself included, will be spending tomorrow in Indianapolis at ISDA's Tractor to Truck event.  We will be presenting awards to the Indiana Family of Farmers Essay Contest winners as well as spending some time sharing agricultural facts with the public at food trucks downtown and hanging out with some local celebrities.  I cannot wait to share some of agriculture's story in an urban setting or to see some familiar faces tomorrow!
     If you're going to be in the Indianapolis area tomorrow, stop by Scratch Truck, Scout's Treats, Tacos without Borders, New York Slice, West Coast Tacos, or Some of This, Some of That for lunch and see us!

Campbells Soup, Meat Lockers, and a Trip Home

     This past week has been a little different than most since we've taken office.  Well, that statement would lead to a conclusion that there is a such a thing as a typical week, which there definitely isn't, but this past week has been different mainly because we literally did a completely different activity every day.
      Gianna and I went north to Western Boone's officer induction on Monday.  Western Boone's advisor had retired just a few days before, which led to the unusual situation of their vice principal acting as their advisor.  The attitudes of the staff and students to keep the program growing and going in a positive direction were definitely reassuring, only second to their well run and well organized meeting.
      Tuesday the entire team switched gears and we headed to the statehouse to meet the Wawasee FFA's agricultural issues team.  They were visiting the statehouse to build their team's resume for the competition in which they will be presenting about the pros and cons of large scale livestock production.  Many of us formed new friendships that day and none of us were complaining when we were taken to Buca Di Beppo for lunch.
      Wednesday meant another trip north.  We ventured into "flat lander country," as my southern teammates refer to it, for a tour at Rose Acres.  It was an awesome visit with some very knowledgeable guides who told us about everything from Campbell's Soup to recycled pallets as they related to Rose Acres.  After the tour I left to go home to the Miami County Soil and Water Conservation District Annual Meeting to congratulate members of my home chapter on their success in soils this past year, chat with a ton of people I hadn't seen in a while, and listen to Mr. Bechman's keynote on the importance of family.
      Thursday was a day of catching up in the office.  We are planning out our personal schedules for FFA week right now, and I can't wait to visit all the schools I've made plans with!  Rachel, Ross, and Jake left that night for a banquet in Rensselaer.
      Friday the rest of us left in the afternoon to stay in Hageman family's guest house.  The house was beautiful and the team enjoyed the time together before making the much shorter trip to Purdue the next morning.
      Saturday's meats and dairy foods contests were amazing.  I had never seen either contest before, and I must say that meats is the coolest contest ever both figuratively and literally.  Students spent a couple hours in meat lockers judging and grading various carcasses and cuts of meats.  As a livestock showman it was very interesting to see the practical side of what I spent the last ten years feeding, fitting, and leading through the show ring.  It was also great to catch up with the friends we have made throughout the year that were competing as well as meeting some new people.
       Though it sometimes felt like we were going thirty directions at once, this week was great for all of us.  We got to see more members than we have seen since our last conference, and it was awesome to do so much.  I am continually thankful for this experience and will definitely count this week as one of my favorites even if it didn't include any huge multi-day events.

Tis the Season to Serve

It's the holiday season and everyone is busy with parties, open houses, studying for finals, and last minute shopping.  Two FFA chapters found time in their busy schedules to remember the community spirit that makes this time of year so great last weekend, and we were blessed with the opportunity to tag along.      Rachel, Casie, Gianna, and I were all able to be a part of the Crothersville FFA Chapter's community food drive delivery.  We spent the entire morning working alongside FFA members, the local fire department, and other community members as they delivered food on fire trucks to those in need.  The chapter had been fundraising for months as well as collecting and sorting donations.  Their hard work paid off as they delivered food and toys to almost one hundred local families.  The gratitude of those who were served was clear, and the attitude of service and kindness that everyone working had was simply amazing.     The next morning the entire team participated in the Shenandoah FFA Chapter's Snug Harbor Christmas.  This event gave around 150 local developmentally disabled adults a positive Christmas celebration.  FFA members served a meal and Santa visited to pass out presents to the incredibly happy clients.  Everyone left with smiles on their faces.     The team and I definitely enjoyed serving alongside the Crothersville and Shenandoah chapters and seeing their willingness to serve pay off.  It was truly inspiring to see that many high school and junior high students drop their own activities and take time to improve the lives of those around them.  I hope that all of you reading this have a great holiday season with your families and remembers what this season truly is about!

State Soils: Do You Dig It?

The state officer team had the opportunity to assist with the State Soils Career Development Event yesterday in Martinsville.  As a four year soils judge myself, I was extremely excited to travel to the state contest and to see it from a different perspective.  My teammates and I got to see members and friends from across the state as we spent the day registering enthusiastic teams that had been practicing for months and helping to tabulate scores.  After our day of checking Scantron sheets for computer errors, we were given the opportunity to recognize those teams and individuals who had posted outstanding scores.  The top five teams in the 4-H and FFA divisions qualified for the national competition in Oklahoma City next May.  The first place 4-H team was the Jay County team, and the top FFA team and the highest scoring team overall was the team representing the Southmont FFA chapter.  Full results should be available on the Purdue CDE website within the next two days.  We congratulate all who participated, as even though not everyone came away with a trophy or a plaque, everyone was given the opportunity to make new friends, learn new skills, and have a great time in Martinsville this weekend!

Pride of Nations! (er... States)

The definition of a flag is “a piece of cloth, varying in size, shape, color, and design, usually attached at one edge to a staff or cord, and used as the symbol of a nation, state, or organization.” I would say this definition is mostly sufficient. With as much as this definition describes, one thing it fails to mention is the emotion that a flag can bring to a location and its citizen.

One of the duties of the Indiana Sentinel is to bear the flag throughout National Convention. I am honored to fulfill this duty. With this duty, I am able to participate in the Grand March before the first session and the presentation of the association flags at the Second General Session.

Sadly, with the recent weather developments, the Grand March was cancelled. But I was still able to march through the lobby of Conseco Fieldhouse touting the flag of Indiana! Tomorrow afternoon, I will be able to honor the Hoosier State even better. I get to present the flag on stage at the 84^th National Convention! How neat is that? Think about it this way, I get to represent one of the 52 areas that the National FFA Organization covers. As the Secretary would say, “wherever corn is grown and FFA members meet.” But maybe even more awesome is the fact that this year, the FFA is focusing on the heritage of Native American tribes. Representatives of ten or so tribes will also display their flags at this year’s convention!

My favorite part of the whole process however, is that I get to represent my home, and the place I love; the Crossroads of America that are Indiana.

Figure 1. A diagram of the Indiana flag, for those who don't remember what it looks like.

The Crossroads of America

As I write this blog, I am currently sitting in a McDonald's. How ironic right? Like Gianna has already described, the state officers are currently smack dab in the middle of our chapter visit tour, aptly named the Impact Express. While on this tour, we will visit somewhere between 65-75 chapters all across the great Hoosier State, and easily talk to more than 1500 students. To say this is an experience we are all excited for would be an understatement. What is more exciting than driving the "Crossroads of America" from top to bottom 3 weeks in a row in order to promote ag education, FFA, and personal growth? That's right, hardly anything, except for IPFW Mastodons basketball, FFA National Convention, Monopoly at McDonald's, Stormchasers on the Discovery Channel, and the new season of Glee. (Ok, I'm totally kidding about the last one.) As I have traveled across our great state, I have realized that the Crossroads of America statement is completely true.

Rachel and I had the great opportunity last Tuesday to visit the Benton Central FFA Chapter just north of West Lafayette in District IV. When we pulled into the parking lot at the school, we noticed something different about the landscape. There is a wind farm located directly behind the school. How neat is that!?

Right then, we made it our goal to get up close and personal with a wind turbine that day. On our drive towards Lafayette for District IV Kick-off, we went road farming, and pulled off of US 52 and on to a country road. We just wanted to take a picture of the wind turbine we could get closest to. And close we got.   We saw a gravel access road that led us right up to the base of the wind turbine! It was a sign that we needed to drive right up to this turbine. Think of Jack and his infamous beanstalk. It grew to the Kingdom of the Giants in the sky. Every person hearing the story knows that Jack has to climb the beanstalk into the sky regardless of what will happen in the end, because well, he just has to. And so we drove down the access road. And parked less than fifty feet away from the bottom of the turbine.

       Wind turbines are incredible structures, and this one was no less. Standing directly under the blades of the turbine, you realize the sheer power of these structures. Surprisingly, there is no whooshing noise and no wind being created from the spinning blades. It really is incredible. After snapping a few photos, we left the turbine.

On Thursday, Jake and I visited District X, which was an absolute blast! We had a morning visit at Northeast Dubois, and then we left for Gibson Southern. As we approached Gibson Southern, worried that we may have been running late, I told Jake (our driver) that we should ignore a road closed sign because we could probably get through with local traffic. Bad decision on my part. We drove a few miles down highway 168 towards Fort Branch, and then saw that the road ahead of us was nothing but dirt and heavy machinery. The road was truly closed; it was hardly there. And so we immediately took a left turn on a gravel road, which was more tar than gravel. While Jake complained about the tar on his car and I sat sullenly thinking about my poor decision to skip the detour, we both burst out laughing. It was truly funny how cruddy this road was. That's when I realized that it didn't matter that I had made a navigational error. We were having a more memorable experience on one of the true Crossroads of Indiana. We ended up being early to Gibson Southern, and I doubt Jake or I will ever forget that awful gravel road.

 It isn't always the final destination that we will remember. Many times it's the experience of getting to that destination that will be more memorable.