From Sept. 10-14, 75 FFA members from across the country traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, to attend the Next Gen Conference: Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences. Of these members, three of them represented North Carolina FFA: Laiken Wilcox of Lumberton FFA, Claire Fields of Asheboro Zoo FFA and Madisyn Russell of Perquimans FFA.
“Next Gen was an incredible experience and I really recommend it to anyone thinking about applying!” Fields says. “I made so many new friends and learned so much about natural resources and the environment.”
The purpose of the Next Gen Conferences is to open doors for high school students to help them identify their future career plans and goals. Through this conference, attendees explored natural resources and environmental sciences with a career fair as well as tours of Antelope Island State Park and the Rio Tinto Copper Mines.
“This conference helped me determine what career I wanted to have after I graduate high school,” Wilcox says. “It was an amazing experience learning about the various opportunities in the natural resources area.”
National FFA hosts three Next Gen Conferences a year in different categories. The first conference in 2025, which will be held March 4-8 in Orlando, Fla., covers plant systems. Seventy-five members from across the country were recently accepted, one of which is Kaitlyn Woodell from the Lumberton FFA Chapter.
