Paul's Risk Management Essay Contest

My time with the Risk Management Essay contest in Washington, DC was amazing. I had the chance to hang out for four days with some awesome FFA members who have taken their SAE and FFA experience to a new level by becoming involved in this contest. Matthew Earnest, Brandon Essink, Adam Francis, Hanah Georges, Kaitlyn Gill, Thad Gorczyca, Tyler Ray, Mitchell Ross, and Joe Schartz were the ten student winners this year. The ten of them and their advisor or parents came to DC for an all expense paid trip in cooperation with USDA and the Risk Management Agency. The Ten national winning essays were selected on the basis of content, adherence to the assigned topic, grammar, organization, originality and creativity. This is one program that I highly encourage every FFA out there to become involved in! Who doesn’t want to learn more about agriculture and get the chance to serve as an advocate during a free trip to Washington, DC?

The first night we arrived we had a kick-off session where we had the chance to meet everyone and Melissa Brown, Melissa Higdon, and Kent Scheske from National FFA told us what to expect this week. Later that night we went on an amazing night tour of DC and saw the Lincoln Memorial, Korean Memorial, Vietnam Wall, World War II Memorial and finally the Washington Monument. It was gorgeous!

The next day all ten students went to Capitol hill to meet with their respective congressmen. The students had a great chance to see the capitol. Learn more about government, and also to advocate for a nation’s most important industry. Later that night we had a leadership workshop and I took the ten winners to see the Jefferson and FDR memorials. We talked about our own vision for the future, and reflected on the vision that some influential leaders in American history have had.

Friday, we all had the chance to meet with USDA Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. HE shared with us some words of wisdom and talked with us about the future of our industry. Michael Scuse and some other USDA representatives shared some brief remarks as well.

On Saturday we took a tour of the White House and it was a special day. All of us got the chance to see some really neat parts of the White House and learn about the history that went with it. It was a great last day to the trip!