The Legacy

My curiosity about FFA started in 2005. I was a mere 8th grader and barely knew anything about FFA other than Eldon was well-known for it (with 230 members we were the 2nd largest chapter in the State) and my sister, Jessie, was in it. That year she competed in Parliamentary Procedure with 5 of her classmates: John, Curtis, Emily, Kristen, and Dara. They placed 2nd at Area, 2nd at Districts, and 1st at State. (They were utterly shocked winning State after placing 2nd in both competitions previously.)

Winning State sent them to Nationals, where they finished 3rd. They were the 2nd Parli team (and 3rd of any team) in Eldon to ever make it to Nationals. (Until I watched my sister's team do a parli demonstration, my 8th grade mind kept thinking Parsley Team. Which isn't too far of a stretch considering it is FFA and she was on the Soils Team the year before, right??)

Thanks to my sister, I joined FFA my freshman year of high school and hit the ground running.

(Nerd alert!) That first year I was a Jr. Officer, Most Active Member, Star Greenhand (the top first year member), and placed 5th on the FFA Knowledge team at State. Considering I was the epitome of an awkward freshman, super quiet, and at the time terrified of public speaking (no matter if it were in front of 5 people or 230), I surprised myself by stepping so far out of my comfort zone.

My Greenhand Initiation.
Me, Jana, and my sister, Jessie.

I was beginning to find my place in the world known as high school.

Sophomore year was much of the same. However, you are not allowed to do the same contest team again once you place at state so that year I competed on the Meats Team. Yes, it is what it sounds like. You judge meat. Determine if it is beef, pork, or lamb, what cut of meat it is, and where the cut is located on the animal. (Perks, I know how to pick out a delicious tasting steak with the perfect amount of fat to add flavor!) We won Districts and did alright, but not great, at State competition. I was satisfied though. Going into Meats Team, I knew very little about looking at meat, so I had challenged myself and learned a lot in the process.

Our Meats Team. We called ourselves
Avery's Angels.

Finally, my Junior year arrived! In Eldon, you have to be a Junior to be on the Parli team. Needless to say, my friend Lauren and I had been waiting for this moment since 8th grade. Her brother, John, was on the same Parli team with my sister that went to Nationals. She and I had been on Knowledge and Meats together, each time hoping we would live up to our siblings' legacy. We knew the Parli team was going to be our best shot at making it to Nationals.

I'm not sure if people had high expectations of our team, but Lauren and I put a lot of pressure on ourselves, because of who our siblings were. Unfortunately, it was a little out of our control. Parli is the only FFA team that competes solely as a team, no individual scores.

We wanted to be as successful as they had been, but in the back of our mind, we thought the odds were surely against us.

Luckily we were in the hands of Mr. Biddle, aka, Papa Parli. He was 1 of Eldon's 3 agriculture instructors, and had been putting Parli teams together for several years. He had taken 2 teams to Nationals: 2000 and 2005. With each year that followed, he learned more about what he needed to adjust to form the best team possible.

Mr. Biddle knew how much it meant to Lauren and me, and in return we knew how much it meant to him.

This was our time.