Rolling Hills

I’m sure we have all heard the famous phrase “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”  I agree with this phrase to a certain extent, but I like to view life as a journey of highs and lows.  We all have adventures in our life that are like a never-ending scene of rolling hills. 

This past June I realized what journeys are truly like in life.  We all have those moments where we are the center of attention, where we get everything we want, and where life is, well, just plain great.  As cliché as it may sound the last two months of high school were the best.  I went to the nation’s capital for the second time in my life, met the governor for my academic excellence, received several scholarships, was named valedictorian of my class, and was elected to serve the Iowa FFA Association.  After all these milestones had been reached in my life I felt a sense of pride… I felt good about myself.  It’s truly a hard feeling to describe, but I happily continued on with life. Although I felt on top of the world, my time on top of the hill was about to come to an end. 

The beginning of June rolled around and I was gone from my small hometown a lot doing what I loved.  I was traveling the state meeting new FFA members, learning their stories and sharing mine.  I loved it.  I got home after COLT, caught up on sleep, did my laundry, and asked some of my friends if they wanted to hang out that night.  Not a single one replied.  Some of my closest friends from high school had forgotten about me.  I’d see them in public and they’d ask why I was home.  My days got pretty boring back home.  My friends from high school plain and simple didn’t care about my accomplishments that had happened two months ago.  I lost a lot of relationships with my friends that I had poured my life into creating.

I was on top of the hill back in April and May It was the best time of my life. I woke up every morning with a smile on my face. That smile slowly faded away after I spent a quick few days in June rolling down the hill to the low point.  It was the best time of my life. I reached this low point in the middle of the month after I returned home from COLT week. It was hard for me to fall asleep at night and exert energy into hobbies I had cared about my whole life.  I felt like I was in the slump of all slumps.  After I climbed out of the low point I realized something: life is an emotional rollercoaster.  It’s like taking a journey among endless rolling hills. We have our highs and our lows.  It’s just as plain and simple as that.  There’s no guarantee as to how long your lows and highs will last.  When you are having a high point in life enjoy it, but don’t let your guard down.  I’m not saying you need to be cautious of entering that “low,” it’s bound to happen, it’s part of life.  Just make sure you’re prepared in case it does happen because I was definitely not prepared at all.

One thing I did was to try and equal my highs and lows out.  I did this by reflecting back on the experience that caused the low, looked at my present life, and then looked towards the future.  As my dad always said look at the future last, because you can’t see what’s ahead of you if you’re looking in the rear view mirror your whole life.

Caleb Finnegan

Southwest State Vice-President

Count Your Blessings

Although Instagram’s feed no longer appears in chronological order (are they ever going to change that, by the way?!), I still find myself scrolling through it on a fairly regular basis, and I always get to see a wide variety of posts whenever I open the app. While it’s fun to see what friends and family are up to, or photos of events and news from organizations like National FFA, Instagram does have its downfalls. After double-tapping countless pictures of dream vacations, perfect outfits, and pretty Starbucks drinks, it doesn’t take long before your timeline has reminded you of all the things you wish you had.

            Sometimes, it’s hard not to get caught up in worrying about all the things we don’t have, and summer is an especially tough time. Between seeing posts on social media about what other people are doing and being busy with our own activities and responsibilities, it’s often difficult to remember to slow down and appreciate all the good things in our lives.

            This is something that I struggle with as well. Trying to balance everything I need to get done, and all the things I want to do means my summers often become a (somewhat overwhelming) blur. When we are caught up in the hustle of this time of year, we sometimes forget to take a minute and remember how blessed we really are. It’s no secret that most of us have goals, things we are continuously striving to achieve. This ambition is great, but it’s also important to look at everything we’ve already accomplished. This drive to succeed will take us far, but so will having the ability to appreciate the beauty of our current situations.

            This is where the phrase, “count your blessings,” comes in handy. Whether we are feeling disappointed by the fact that we aren’t having the insta-worthy summer on the lake that our classmate is, or we are too worried about what we want to do or have next, sometimes we need to simply pause for a second to acknowledge all the reasons we have to be happy. The best way to make it through a negative or stressful situation is to find the positives. This tweet from Kid President sums it up pretty well:

            If we can simply count our blessings and keep our focus on “the awesome,” we will realize that there’s always something to be grateful for. For example, having lots of “thank-you” cards to write from my high school graduation, while time-consuming, means that I have loving, caring friends and family who helped me celebrate this milestone in my life. I have a giant, lovely, purple bruise on my leg from being kicked by a calf, but this is because I have the amazing opportunity to raise livestock and be involved in the agricultural industry. I have a roof over my head, a supportive family, three cute dogs, and a blue corduroy jacket hanging in my closet. Counting my blessings always reminds me that I have so many reasons to be thankful, and I challenge each of you to do the same, because “the awesome” is always there.

Peyton Schmitt

 State Secretary

Connections

The other night I was on a Skype video chat, and I felt like I could only catch one word from each sentence of the conversation before the WiFi would cut out. I had to ask repeatedly, “Did you get that?” when in fact they didn’t get any of what I was saying. It was frustrating! And, if you are anything like me or every other teenager in the world, there are only a little number of things that are more irritating than a poor connection on the phone, our computer, and especially social media. (Gotta keep that Instagram game on fleek, am I right?) But in contrast, when we find a good connection, we are instantly gratified and life goes on with added joy for the simplicities that are 4G LTE data and great WiFi. It’s easy to consider connections like these, but what about the connections that we cannot find on a screen or through a speaker?

Connecting with people is a focal point in our lives. We talk to, gesture, text, call, console, celebrate, and do life with many people. Maybe it’s at school, work, at Starbucks (yum!), or in passing. There is value in connecting with someone, and there is value in understanding how to make good connections with others. Good connections can happen even when someone is completely different from us. Connections go deeper than what we have in common, and they create some of the most joy-filled moments that life can offer to us.

               A few months ago, I flew into Detroit, Michigan to help FFA launch its first Virtual Field Trip on AgExplorer (a super cool resource which you should check out: https://www.agexplorer.com/). When I landed, I called the hotel shuttle and took a ride to the Holiday Inn & Suites Express in Dearborn, Michigan, which was about a 20-minute ride from the airport. If you know me, you know I love to talk, and the 20 minutes was long enough for me to strike up a conversation with the elderly man taking me to hotel. His name was Sabah, and as I spoke with him more, I learned that he immigrated to the United States from Iraq. Sabah and his family were Christians, who owned a Bible store in their home country. When Saddam Hussein rose to power in 2002, they were threatened to close the store or Sabah and his sons would be killed. Their store was burned to the ground, and he and his family fled their home country. Sabah seemed absolutely crushed as he told the story. He said, "I lost about 200,000 dinar when our store was burned, and I know that doesn't sound like very much money, but it's about $2 million in the United States. We lost everything.” Sabah’s sobering story began to change as he explained how much of a blessing it was that he and his family were here in the United States. In his broken English, he continued, "All three of my sons are very successful. One is an engineer, another a doctor, and the other in school. If they are good, I am good."

Before I knew it, we had arrived at the hotel. My conversation with Sabah had ended, and we said goodbye. But as I was checking into my room, I began reflecting on Sabah’s story and realized I had just made a connection with someone who was very different from me—a man who risked his life, left his country, and lost everything. I still can’t imagine the hardship and heartbreak he went through… But despite our differences, I couldn’t help but feel inspired and uplifted by Sabah’s joyful and resilient spirit. He lived life humbly and in service to his family and those around him. Although we didn’t have much in common on the surface, his heart radiated deep-rooted joy I could connect to instantly.

Now, I know we may not be planning a trip to Detroit anytime soon or even taking a hotel shuttle anywhere, but the same kind of connection can be made by you with your school bus driver, the cashier at your local convenient store, your pastor at church, or maybe even that classmate who you’ve always been curious to learn more about. Strike up a conversation with them. Ask them how there day is going. Greet them with a smile just to let them know you’re glad to see them today.

Connecting with people is a focal point in our lives. We talk to, gesture, text, call, console, celebrate, and do life with many people in many different places. Good connections can happen even when someone is completely different from us. Connections go deeper than what we have in common, and they create some of the most joy-filled moments that life can offer to us. Make today the first day you put down the devices with WiFi connection and trade them in for people with whom you can make a deep, joy-filled connection.

Abrah Meyer

Past National Central Region Vice President

#IAFFAWeek

National FFA Week is a crazy time for anyone that has a passion for the blue corduroy, and it was no different for the Iowa FFA Officers. Check out what each officer's week looked like in celebrating of National FFA Week!

Elisa: FFA Week was nothing short of amazing.  I was able to kick off the week with my home chapter of New Hampton.  Starting my last FFA Week in the blue jacket with the place where my journey in FFA began was pretty special.  My second visit was to Carroll Area FFA.  This program had a lot of events going on for FFA week like visiting the local nursing home to read to the residents and a faculty breakfast for their teachers.  Next, I visited Orient-Macksburg FFA.  This school is small (they have 12 students in their senior class!) but mighty! With almost 80% of the school in FFA, they celebrated FFA Week with a school wide bags tournament, and it was super intense!  I ended my week at Rock Valley FFA, where some members were crazy good at FFA Pictionary.  Rock Valley is also home to Rocket Manufacturing - a program where students pretty much have a job working in the school's shop completing orders and learning skills on how to manage a business! Check it out here: http://rocketmanufacturing.weebly.com/

Iowa FFA, thanks for making my FFA Week one I'll never forget! 

Chase: I was able to celebrate part of my National FFA Week with awesome FFA members from the Tri-Star FFA Chapter! I had the opportunity to speak to their student body about FFA and Agriculture as a whole, and then was able to see some students test their agriculture knowledge by shucking some corn, milking a cow, and making butter for their Ag Olympics! It brought me back to my high school days, and made me thankful for this organization for providing opportunities like this to make memories, and meet so many amazing people!

Savannah: National FFA Week was one I will never forget. Thank you to all the people who helped make it possible!! Shout out to Missy from Oelwein and the Moore's from North Mahaska for opening up their homes, and welcoming me as one of their own. I enjoyed my time traveling, presenting workshops, and interacting with students, but my favorite part was watching all the activities chapters spent months preparing for come together as they celebrated this great organization. One in particular was very special. Due to an observation course I am taking at college to help prepare me for my career as an agricultural educator, I got to see the work students put in outside of school to make this week possible. Although I didn't spend this week at Dewitt, I am very humbled to have witnessed their dedication and love for FFA. 

Cole: I started my FFA Week celebration on the road. Radio time was a common theme for me and the rest of my team this past week...I traveled over 1,000 miles myself.  Monday took to me New Hampton where Zach Hamilton, Chase Kusel, Elisa Russ, and I had a wonderful visit and really enjoyed our day. I absolutely loved getting to see all of the good things that are going on at Beckman and Maquoketa Valley on Wednesday. Zach Hamilton and I finished up the week with a rocking visit at Western Dubuque on Friday. They are a model of a chapter that has community and school support, as well as great and improving facilities, but most importantly, amazing students. Thanks for a great National FFA Week!

Zach Hamilton: National FFA Week is officially my favorite holiday, (sorry Christmas!), thanks to this past amazing week! I started my time hanging out with the Turkey Valley and New Hampton members! We had some awesome activities and got to see some rockin’ horticulture action in their greenhouse! From there, I headed over to the Carroll Area chapter with Elisa! We had some serious rockstar members who made some pretty awesome balloon towers and were a blast to hang out with! The next day I got to head on over to the Maquoketa Valley FFA Chapter where Cole and I did some cool workshops, chatted with some rad members, and tried out pineapple brats! (Yes, they had pineapple in them and they were delicious!) After that, I got to head back to my home area and visit North Scott! I had such an awesome time hanging out with members and just having fun! We made some awesome mini-golf courses and had a blast chatting about life! I also go the opportunity to stay later that night and watch a few of their CDE teams practice and hang out with those awesome people! I even got to give a member his first FFA jacket, which was such a neat feeling! The next day, Cole and I met up at Western Dubuque! The first thing we did is walk into an awesome faculty breakfast, and the rest of the day was just as amazing as their pancakes! I was so blessed to travel over 1,500 miles this past week and meet all of the amazing an inspiring people that Iowa FFA has to offer! Thank you Iowa FFA and I’ll see you all soon!

Blake: From Graettinger to Inwood then to Newell and Rock Valley, my National FFA Week was full to the brim with outstanding Northwest IA chapters. While I saw great membership and inspiring programs at every school, I've found one reoccurring fact to be true: every chapter has a uniqueness that sets it apart from the rest. Like in Rock Valley, their program has a business component where two periods of the day are dedicated to Rocket Manufacturing, a business run heavily by the students. At Graettinger, they have a building entirely separate from their school designated for Industrial Tech and Agriculture. These small differences are what make programs unique for every student, but the immense knowledge and passion for agriculture each student takes away will always be the same.

Cully: My National FFA Week was one I will never forget. Monday I kicked off with the South Hamilton FFA Chapter and made some nifty tie blankets and met many of their members, next I traveled to Belmond and had a blast with the Belmond-Klemme and Tall Corn FFA Chapters while I rode a smelly donkey. The second half of my week had me traveling to Orient with Elisa and checked out a truly historic school with some stellar members and lastly I had a short travel to Boone where I saw the incredible work of many passionate members. This week was a blast and I enjoyed every minute with every member I had the chance to meet!

Zach Hoffman: 2017 FFA Week was one for the books! I visited five FFA chapters and met hundreds of new members along the journey. I started the week with a visit to the ADM FFA Chapter on Monday, visited North Polk on Tuesday, made my way down to Southwest Iowa and visited Mount Ayr on Wednesday, Leon on Thursday and wrapped up the busy week with a visit to my home chapter of Creston. I never knew how much coffee could help you survive long days and short nights, but it is a blessing. I hope you had the chance to share your FFA story this past week, but remember, FFA can be celebrated all year long!