Hannah’s Happenings – State Presidents’ Conference

Hey FFA! Long time, no see! It’s been quite the summer as my teammates and I headed to D.C. for the 2009 State Presidents’ Conference beginning on July 21st. The theme for this year was “Unwritten Legacy” and during each day we discovered the Legacy of Leadership, Legacy of Agriculture, Legacy of Service and Our Own Unwritten Legacy.

During our first evening, we attended the Sunset Parade at the Iwo Jima memorial and even got to spend time getting to know some of the Marines following the ceremony.

The next day we kicked off the morning at the United States Department of Education where we heard informational and inspiring messages from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, Glenn Cummings. Both of whom were extremely impressed with our group and expressed their gratitude for the work that our members are doing to further agriculture, agricultural education and the FFA.

Following a short workshop about conducting congressional visits, we all made our way to Capitol Hill to thank our respective legislators and talk with them about the issues facing our industry. That evening we kicked off our work as leadership delegates by revealing the issues to be considered, which were then broken down into the six issues that will come before the entire delegate body at National FFA Convention.

We revealed those six issues the following morning, signed up for delegate committees and met for the first time with our committees. It was exciting to see the very beginning of the delegate process in full swing! From there, we made our way to Arlington National Cemetery to honor those that have given their lives for our freedom. During our time there, we had the chance to watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I was absolutely thrilled and blown away by the fact that it was the first time I have ever seen a guard that was an African American woman. In fact, we heard that she is only the 4th woman ever that has been allowed to guard the tomb. Talk about girl power! :)

Even though it was a little rainy, we definitely enjoyed our time at the cemetery and there were plenty of wet blue corduroy jackets to go around. After drying off, we capped off the evening with a group movie – “National Treasure 2”.
Our final day kicked off with writing thank you’s to those who made SPC possible and then we spent the rest of the day touring the city. My teammates and I were blessed to have our families join us during our time at SPC and I really enjoying seeing the sights with my mom and dad, while my brother Reid toured with some of the other officers.

We rounded out our SPC experience with a night tour of Washington D.C. that included the Jefferson, Vietnam War, Lincoln, World War II, Korean War, and FDR Memorials. Our final stop was at a glowing Capitol building where we sat on the lawn for our last reflections. All in all, it was an absolutely amazing conference and I was so glad to get to spend more time with some great friends from all over the country!

*Pictures to come soon. They currently won't upload, but I'll keep trying!*

God Bless,
Hannah