A Week of New Experiences

This week we have done everything from racing tractors through arenas to attending a wildlife dinner and having our first taste of bear meat! We began the week by attending the Ag Development Forum on the North Carolina State Fair Grounds. While there, we had conversations with Commissioner Steve Troxler and Mr. Larry Wooten, who is this president of North Carolina Farm Bureau. Commissioner Troxler gave a speech on the state of agriculture in North Carolina. He was thrilled to share with everyone that even in the poor state of the economy; agriculture continues to be the number one industry in our state. We were excited to hear from the various representatives that made an appearance at the forum. After departing from the fairgrounds, all six of us piled into Mr. Bledsoe’s truck and made our way to the Horse Complex where the Truck and Tractor Career Development Event had just ended. Mr. Davis and Mr. Bledsoe did the unthinkable……. they allowed all of us to drive one of the tractors. We were so excited to race across the arena, and thankfully, we survived to tell the story.

The next morning, I returned to the fairgrounds to attend the Commissioners breakfast. I had the opportunity to sit with a representative from Syngenta and the director of activities for the state fairgrounds. We engaged in conversations about agriculture, FFA, the fairgrounds and everything Syngenta does for agriculture. It was a great learning experience that I will never forget.

Finally, to top off the week of new experiences we took a road trip to visit the Greys Creek FFA Chapter. This happened to Jamie’s home chapter, so we were stoked about visiting one of our teammate’s schools. Jamie was anxiously waiting for Justin, Elizabeth and I to get there so we could attend the very first Greys Creek FFA Wildlife Banquet. We arrived at the Dupont facility to a feast of raccoon, bear, deer and every type of wildlife you can imagine. Justin was the bravest of our group and sampled almost everything they had to offer. I admit that I was not as adventurous as him and only tried the bear. Jamie comes from a great family oriented FFA chapter and we had a blast with the members.