On June 15th, the 95th annual Illinois FFA Convention wrapped up in Springfield. Among the over 5,000 FFA students in attendance at the convention were six members of the Monmouth- Roseville FFA Chapter.
This was the first convention Camden Johnson, 2023-24 MR FFA secretary, attended. He said that his experience has opened his eyes to the opportunities FFA has to offer.
“It’s given me ideas on what kind of competitions I want to do- career paths, colleges, and what ag major I’d like to do,” said Johnson. “It’s just opened up my eyes a lot more than I knew before.”
For Haley Frakes, 2023-24 MR FFA reporter, attending the convention inspired her to push herself more.
“I already compete in [Extemporaneous Public Speaking],” said Frakes. “I feel like Thaddeus who just won state and [elected] President- I feel like his him winning motivated me to do better in my CTE.”
While at the convention, two students of the MR FFA Chapter were presented with their State FFA Degrees; Malia Killey & Addisyn Switzer. Kendyl Kane, 2022-23 MR FFA president also placed third place in the state for her scrapbook.
“Me, Aubrey Killey, and DeNeene Killey all worked on a scrapbook. About a month ago, we worked from Monday to Friday, every single day from 8 am till about some nights 11 pm,” said Kane. “It was in chronological order. So it went from state officers to section officers, national officers, and chapter officers. Then it went from events, we started all the way back in August. I was able to showcase a ton of photos and see what happened throughout these last the last school year.”
David Ramirez, 2022-23 Section 4 president from MR FFA also wrapped up his term as he introduced the new section president.