(Radio Iowa) – One of the nation’s largest F-F-A conventions will get underway in central Iowa this weekend. About five-thousand Iowa members of the agricultural education organization will attend the 98th annual Iowa F-F-A State Leadership Conference at Iowa State University’s Hilton Coliseum in Ames. Scott Johnson, executive director of the Iowa F-F-A Association, says one key focus of the three-day event is leadership and career development.
“One of the opportunities we have is to work with industry partners and state officers from other states that will come in and deliver workshops,” Johnson says. “The nice thing about that mix is that there’s a variety of options. For students that are at the conference and they’re maybe not tied up with a competition or a tour someplace, there’s workshop options on that Monday and Tuesday.” The workshops are crucial in helping middle and high schoolers plan for their futures, and Johnson says it’s good for them to hear important messages from people -other- than their teachers and coaches.
“From a student standpoint, ‘Well, it’s the teacher’s job, right? It’s the coach’s job to tell us we’re supposed to do these things,’ but you put a guest presenter in front of them and it tends to be received differently and have that impact,” Johnson says. “They get a chance to customize that a little bit and they’re going to listen to someone else that they don’t listen to every day, and that change tends to have a positive impact.” The convention will feature some 40 competitions on topics including public speaking, job interviews, biotechnology, and farm business management.
Hundreds of convention attendees will also be taking part in a service project with Meals from the Heartland. “We’ll have over 1,200 members involved from more than 80 FFA chapters this year packaging I think it’s 220,000 meals,” Johnson says. “They’ll package those meals that will be shipped who-knows-where. There will be an opportunity for local chapters to take some back to their local food bank if they desire, and then Meals from the Heartland will ship out the rest of them.”
Over the history of the partnership, Johnson says Iowa F-F-A members have packaged nearly three-million meals for Meals from the Heartland. The conference runs Sunday through Tuesday at I-S-U. The Iowa FFA Association has more than 20,500 student members at 273 local chapters.
