Spencer National FFA convention group was busy in Indy
In 2019, my chapter went to the FFA National Convention in Indianapolis Ind. Throughout the week, we saw many different places and things.
When our chapter was heading down to Indianapolis, we stopped at the Chicago airport and toured their border protection and customs. We saw all of the different foods they had to confiscate from passengers coming from different countries in that one week. They took many different kinds of food, like any kind of meat or fruits and vegetables. After they showed us the different foods they had to confiscate, they showed us one of their main ways they find the food when it is in the passenger’s bag, which is dogs. They did demonstrations with the dog and showed us how they sniff all of the passenger’s bags and look for specific scents of meat or fruit like citrus fruits. They explained how the dogs are able to tell the difference between the scents of an actual orange or just something scented like oranges. The instructor explained how they trained the dogs to smell for specific smells like citrus fruits.
The next day our group went down to Kentucky to tour the Kentucky Derby and the Louisville Slugger factory. When we went to the Kentucky Derby, we walked through the tunnel where all the racehorses came out. We saw all the different names of the horses who won the Kentucky Derby. They explained the history behind the Derby and also how many people came to see it every year.
After that, our group went to the Louisville Slugger factory which was my favorite place we toured. In the factory, they showed all the different machines that are used to make the bats. They have different sections, which show the specific job they were used for like cutting the bat into shape, trimming the bat, and coating the bat with colors. There was also a shelf on the wall which had bats for specific MLB players that were sent to them by the company. There was a room where you could hold famous peoples’ bats, like Babe Ruth. After the tour, we got to see the world’s largest baseball bat.
For the next three days, we had had speeches from people from the national FFA officers and from special guests. We also helped with Courtesy Corps and sold FFA jackets to people and helped pack up clothes for people who were buying FFA apparel.
During the speeches, the different guests talked about how we can help change the world. One of my favorite speakers was the one who tried one different thing every day. She recorded all of the different things she did and posted them on YouTube for all to see. Some of the crazy things she did were parachuting and public dancing. For her one hundredth and final challenge, 5 Gum wanted her to rappel off a building, but she wanted to do something she was very scared of like speaking live in front of a crowd. Therefore, she turned down 5 Gum’s offer and decided for her one hundredth challenge she was going to do a TED talk. After that, she told us that if we did not ever step out of our boundaries we were not fully growing to our full potential.
When we were not at the different speeches, we were at the convention room, which had a bunch of different companies that showed us different jobs like farming and welding. They had different VR (virtual reality) experiences like VR welding and VR farming. This allowed us to look at the different jobs we could strive towards. We learned a lot from the different companies from the convention.
There were Culvers at the convention where you could get free custard. After that, you could go to the blue room that allowed you to talk to different businesses and at the end of the hour you were allowed in the room and one person was selected to win an Xbox 1S. One of my friends won one of the Xbox 1’s which is very cool.
National convention was a very interesting event and taught our chapter a lot about different aspects of agriculture. It also taught us that we need to push our boundaries so we can grow more. This event is very worth going to and teaches everyone a lot about agriculture and a good amount of the jobs in the workforce. I truly cannot wait to see what they might do in 2020 for the FFA National Convention.
