As National FFA staff and crews prepared the Indiana Convention Center, Lucas Oil Stadium and other facilities for the 97th National FFA Convention & Expo, the 2023-24 national officers have put in the effort on their general session speeches, award ceremonies and retiring addresses, which each officer will deliver over the course of the week. More than 19 hours of content was memorized between the six officers as they prepared for their various appearances. So how do the national officers prepare for so much content?
“I just go line by line. I say one line until I remember it, and then I add that next line on and then I add that next line,” says National FFA Southern Region Vice President Carter Howell. “It seems like it’s going to be really hard and impossible at the beginning. But with more practice and more practice, you make a lot of progress.”
As the final speech of their year of service, the officers hope their retiring remarks inspire motivation and wisdom. “I hope that what I share will resonate with the audience in a large way,” says National FFA Central Region Vice President Morgan Anderson. “I think about, okay, if this is the only time that they will get to experience convention, what can I deliver to them that will check all the boxes and leave them satisfied with their experience? What’s engaging, what’s entertaining, what’s appealing. And I think that’s really how you can really flow that content into the direction you want.”
“One thing I’ve learned in my year is we are all a lot more similar than we are different, even if it’s sometimes hard to recognize that,” Howell adds. “So something I try to do is think about when I was a 16-year-old or 17-year-old member in those seats. I was attending the same convention. What is the message that I needed to hear?”
As if the speechwriting and memorization weren’t weighty enough, the officers also must process the huge year they’ve had.
“It’s actually really special because when you get elected to national office and you’re in that whirlwind of events, you do some media interviews and then the next day you get to have breakfast with the team that just retired,” Howell says. “The next thing you do after that, after you say goodbye to your parents, is you come to (the Indiana FFA Leadership Center). It’s really full circle at the end of the year, we get to come back here to this great space that provides us an opportunity to really reconnect as a team, to practice the things that we need to work on and mention, and come back to that common space where that journey did begin.”
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