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What do you get when you combine corduroy jackets, enthusiasm, pride, and a four hour trip down to the sandy beaches of Corpus Christi Texas? The answer to that would be the 82nd Annual Texas FFA Convention. Slater Sultemeier, Zachary Denton, Garrett Deike, Shania Dubose, Melinda Holdridge, Chandler Wagner, Kendra Smith, Sawyer Marks, Charlie Moore, Shane Smith, Jacy Johnson, Shelby Conlon, Kelly Wright, Erin O’Brien, Elizabeth Nunn, and Ashley Bargsley, were lucky enough to attend this huge event. Chaperones for the week were Steven Meier, Myron Uecker, Theogena Marks, Debbie Sultemeier, and Mary Uecker.

The Chapter left the school at 8:00 am Monday, July 12th and headed down to Corpus for a week packed full of fun and leadership opportunities. On Tuesday, the 13th, the members headed out for a few leadership workshops to help with improving their skills. Meanwhile, Slater and Garrett received their FFA Lone Star Degree, which is the highest award an FFA member can receive from the state FFA. This award is reached each year by only the top 1 ½ % of the 74,000 FFA members in Texas. That evening the members attended a concert starring Texas Country singer Kyle Park. Wednesday the 14th started off inspiring with listening to Tyler Bradfield and Katie Heinrich’s retiring officer speech later followed by motivational speaker Josh Sundquist, a man who has survived a life with only one leg due to a horrible cancer outbreak. After closing ceremonies the group headed off for an afternoon at the beach, and some fishing. Thursday came the time we had all been waiting for, when the delegates got to hear the speeches from the incoming State Officers and vote on who would be our next State FFA President. It was then narrowed down to four outstanding candidates and the delegates voted once again. Later that night the chapter attended the fun night starting off with the Talent Competition, where Colton Dewberry took it away with some old fashioned Conway Twitty songs. Afterwards they attended the Convention Dance. The week was fun, long, and memorable but all came to an end on Friday the 16th at the last general session when we heard the retiring speeches from our 2009-2010 President and First Vice president, Allison Granger and Kaleb McLaurin. Later on the suspense was released when Mason Parish was named the 2010-2011 State FFA President and Daylon Koster (from our very own Area VII) was given the position of the 2010-2011 First Vice President. As the gavel was handed down and the rings passed along, the 2009-2010 State Officers said their final goodbyes, and left their one lesson ringing in our heads. It all starts with one, one future, one passion, one legacy, it all starts here and it all starts now!