Small Town Proud

At last, the time has come. Summer is right around the corner. The time to go swimming in the lake, driving 30 minutes to go to Walmart only to walk around, and driving around your small town looking for something to do. The late night talk sessions while driving around with the windows down are where we will spend most of our nights. We all have that one thing we look forward to each summer. Personally, mine is the time spent with my FFA chapter that has my towns name on the back of their jackets.

Although I love to go swimming with my friends, going to Walmart just for something to do, driving around Nashua, going down the same street over and over for hours, I look forward to getting together with my chapter and decorating our float for the annual Water Over the Dam Days parade. The meetings, the grill outs, the kickball tournaments, each summer, we have a lot to look forward to. However, sometimes things don’t go as planned. Sometimes our activities will get rained out, or being in Iowa, they could get snowed out. With our chapter being in a small town, activities can sometimes get doubled up. If our FFA monthly meeting is at 6:30 in the Ag room, you better bet there is probably a football meeting in the library at the same time!

Being from a small town, everybody knows everybody. When I go into the local Casey’s or Kwik Star, I am greeted with a “good afternoon Mr. Bucknell, how are you doing today” or a “How is FFA treating you.” The advantages of being from a small town is that everyone sees your accomplishments or failures. It is up to you to decide what you want to be known as. Everyone knows the athletes, drama stars, band/choir kids, art kids, Ag kids, they know everything you do.

Being from a small town, doesn’t mean that no one can/will be successful. It means that those that are, face harder challenges. If you fail, everyone will see you as the person that failed but not the person who refuses to give up, but if you do succeed, everyone knows your accomplishment, it is in the town’s newspaper, all over your social media timelines, and in many other places. The community rallies behind your success(s) and looks at you as a role model and for advice. I can personally say that I am proud to be from our small town where my friends have turned into family.

Create your Legacy,

Lukas Bucknell

North Central State Vice President

The Next Chapter

Graduation. The point in our lives that we either can’t wait for, or the point that we dread. Whichever perspective we hold depends a lot on our personal experiences. If you are like me, you are the person who can’t/couldn’t wait to leave high school in the past.

I’m sure we’ve all heard someone say, “high school is the best time of your life.” Maybe this is true for some of us, but not for all of us. And that’s okay. It’s okay to love high school and it’s okay to not. What’s important to remember is to respect each other’s feelings on this matter. There was nothing I couldn’t stand more than someone trying to change my mind whenever I said anything about being excited for graduation.

Most of us have attended a commencement ceremony. We’ve seen the graduates who can’t stop the tears from flowing, the ones who check on stage to see if their diploma is signed, and the ones who are yawning in the front row. Although there are widespread feelings and reactions among these graduates, they share one commonality. They have reached a new beginning.

There seems to be a common misconception around graduation. Some look at this time as one story ending and a different one beginning. Graduation instead signifies the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new chapter. Life is not separated into two different eras, “before graduation” and “after graduation.” Life is one story with several chapters.

It’s okay to be excited to start a new chapter. Think about how you feel when you’re reading a good book. Everything that has happened in the book has led you to this moment. You can’t wait to see what happens next. This can also be applied to our lives. Our years of school that seem to drag on forever lead us to our graduation. We don’t know exactly what lies ahead after our graduation, but we’re excited to find out.

Just because we have left one chapter, does not mean we have to dwell on it. As the cheesy Dr. Seuss quote goes, “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” It’s okay to be ready to start your next chapter. The pages are blank. They are yours to fill in.

Living to Serve,

Hope Brecht

Southeast State Vice President

Iowa FFA Association

Finishing the Year Strong

As a student, the last month of school can be the hardest to complete. Summer is almost here and we’re ready to start all of the plans we have for our vacation. It can be difficult to stay focused and finish the year strong, even though we have many commitments to fulfill. It’s important to keep our energy up and finish the school year just as strong as it began.


In my FFA chapter in Forest City, we have an Ag Safety day for middle school students. We bring in different animals and farm equipment so that we can educate the students on different aspects of agriculture. It’s a fun event for both the high school students and the middle school students. Our biggest issue with this event is always the time of year. We have this event towards the end of May. Many times, Ag Safety Day falls on a date after the seniors have graduated. It can be challenging to have enough volunteers to put together a fun experience for the students.


In order to make this day a success, we have to work together as a team. We each tackle a task that has to be done. We communicate to the other members of the team. When we meet to plan Ag Safety Day, we make it a fun experience by sharing snacks and telling jokes. Most importantly, we hold each other accountable for completing the responsibilities we each have. We’d remind each other to get our tasks done, so that we could create a fun Ag Safety day for our middle school students.


Once the day of the event arrives, new challenges arise. There’s always a student that decides not to show up, even if they have volunteered to help. A student always forgets to bring the supplies they need for their station. As these issues arise, we have to be adaptable enough to cover them quickly. We always come up with a solution, and the day usually goes pretty smoothly. However, it’s always a little disappointing when we find out a student has decided not to participate, even though they had previously signed up to help.


While we finish our school year, it can be easy to be the student who decides not to show up to our commitments. We get caught up in our plans for the summer, and forget how much our participation is needed. As we finish the year, I encourage you to keep your energy high. There are three things that always seem to keep me energized and I want to share them with you now.


The first thing I always do is keep my schedule as routine as possible. I do my best to go to bed at the same time, and I eat breakfast every morning. I study for tests the same way I do throughout the year, and I take notes in every class. These actions all seem like little details, but the routine keeps me focused on finishing the year.


I also volunteer for activities with friends. I’m a part of my high school Interact club. Through this group, I do community service projects with other students. In the month before school ends, I make sure to sign up for service projects that I can do with friends. Maybe it’s planting trees or helping at the humane society. This way, if I start to slack on my commitment, my friends are there to hold me accountable.


Lastly, I make sure to plan fun activities on the weekends. My family has always loved camping, but we don’t always have the time to do it. If the weather is really nice, we’ll set up our tent in the backyard. This is a fun chance for us to spend time outside together. Sometimes my sister and I will go to a local ice cream shop and spend the afternoon walking around a state park. These are fun activities that I can do during the school year, rather than waiting until summer.


Keeping a routine schedule, finding friends to hold me accountable, and doing fun activities on the weekends are all ways that I finish the year strong. By finding the strategies that keep you focused and energized, I hope you’ll find it’s much easier to finish your school year. I wish you all the best of luck with your last month of school!

Run with your Challenges,

Natalie Jefson

Iowa FFA State Secretary

Knockout

The crowd rumbled with a hundred conversations in the packed arena. The smell of popcorn, salted peanuts, and sweat mixed with the electricity in the air. Men in 3 piece suits with loosened ties, sat next to farmers and factory workers still in their work attire, conversing. Taking the center of the ring, a man in a suite lifted a microphone up to his lips and the lights dimmed. Over in the corner, a short, but built man stood, shaking his arms and bouncing up and down, waiting. The crowd hushed as the man with the microphone spoke in a deep and exhilarating tone.

“Welcome, to tonight’s Golden Glove lightweight bout!”

The man in the corner continued to shake his arms and move his legs. The crowd roared as a man in black trunks entered the ring and waved to the crowd. The suited man lowered his voice once again.

“And in this corner, standing 5’7’’, weighing 126 lbs, from Hankinson, North Dakota your lightweight champion, James Jahner!

The man in the corner stopped jumping, put up his gloves and took the ring as cameras flashed and the crowd roared.

My grandfather, James Jahner, wasn’t a perfect boxer. He was a persistent one.

Persistence, by definition, is “firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.”

Persistence can be found in all walks of life, not just boxing.

In the 1980s, the American Agriculturist had to do all they could to keep their operations afloat. Whether it was high-interest rates, low market prices, drought or all of the above, life was grim. Companies began to collapse and merge, families lost their homes, Christmas gifts were merely the free items the seed salesman handed out. But some held on. If you are looking for a real-world example of persistence after being knocked down, talk to a farmer who made it through the 80s.

But where is persistence today? In our throw-away culture, what happened?

“Something isn’t working? We’ll buy new!” “He/she and I just couldn’t work things out, so we broke up.” “It was too hard, took too much time, so I quit.”

It makes no sense. Where’s the grit? Where’s the can-do attitude? Where’s the passion?

Rocky, although fictional, is one of the most recognizable boxers in the history of the sport said, “It ain’t about how hard ya can hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” That goes for everyone, not just boxers. Life is difficult, and that’s ok. Life is about what you do in the face of that difficulty. Did you fight or did you let go? Did you plant one more year and pray for the Crisis to end? Were you persistent?

I ask you, whatever it is you care about, whether it’s faith, family, school, or work, don’t let it go easily. Stay after it. Put your gloves up and fight for it! When you get tired, or when you fail, think before you throw in the towel, because you never know if your next punch is going to be a Knockout.

Go Get Em,

Chandler Jahner

State President