Ignite FFA

    Last week had some first times for me. First time I went to Louisville, Kentucky, first time I went to Churchill Downs and the Louisville Slugger Museum, and the first time I went to the National FFA Convention.

    My trip started on Wednesday morning around six in the morning. Along with eight other members and our advisor we traveled to another town, where we shared a charter bus with four other FFA chapters in the area. We then headed east to St. Louis then into Illinois and Indiana. The bus ride consisted of quoting Pitch Perfect, sleeping against friends and pillow pets, and eating twizzlers. By the time we got to the hotel (which took about ten hours) we were all ready to get off.

    The next day we went to the first session and visited the Career and College Fair and the Shopping Mall. Later that night we also saw a hypnotist show. The largest convention I have been to was State FFA Convention; but that didn't compete with the amount of FFA members in Kentucky. At the first session there were over 50,000 members. To describe the first session a little better I have visual aids. :)

                                      This is the theme song/video for the Convention.

 

There was a lazer light show at every session.

This guy did this painting by literally throwing paint on the canvas in a matter of minutes!

I went on the trip with some of my closest friends! (Left to Right) Myself, Meghan, and Sydney.

    Before the sun even rose on Friday we were up and heading to the Louisville Slugger Museum. During the tour we were shown how they made the bats for professional and minor leagues, and recreational purposes. It used to be that each bat was made by hand and a lot of detail went into each bat. Then we went to tour Churchill Downs and watch horse races. I have never seen a horse race before so it was a neat experience. Each race would last about a minute and then 30 minutes would pass before the next race, we had a lot of down time because of that.

    Because it was Halloween many members on our bus wanted to go to a haunted house. I decided to stay behind at the hotel and I am glad I did. They waited in line for three hours in the pouring rain and didn't get back to the hotel till two in the morning!

This was a nice view on Friday morning!

First time to watch a horse race, lasted only 57 seconds...

    On our final day in Kentucky we went to the last session, which had a record breaking attendance of over 60,000 members present! This was the session that the American Degree was to be presented to members who have earned the honor. The American Degree is the highest award a member can get in FFA, kinda like Eagle Scout for Boy Scouts. Missouri had the largest amount of recipients, 474 collegiate members! This is because Missouri has the most challenging requirements for their State Degree, so if you get your State Degree you are a shoe in for the American Degree.

    After we saw our American Degree recipient from our chapter we high-tailed it to the bus. We got lost somewhere in Illinois, so the trip home ended up being around eleven hours. I had a lot of fun on the trip and I can not wait till next year!