Minnesota FFA State Convention (and the year 2021) was “Worth It!”
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
Minnesota FFA State Convention featured plenty of hoopla this year, but most of it was virtual.
Still, students across Minnesota mustered enthusiasm and excitement, celebrating accomplishments, awards and milestones in their agricultural education with ceremonies, speeches and workshops that took place over the course of five days.
FFA State Convention concluded earlier this spring with the election of the new leadership team:
- State President – Emily Matejka, Martin County West FFA;
- State Vice President – Wyatt Halvorson, Thief River Falls FFA;
- State Secretary – Nicole Koziolek, Randolph FFA;
- State Treasurer – Kyle Thomas, Rockford FFA;
- State Reporter – Anna Ridenour, Triton FFA; and
- State Sentinel – Baleigh Peterson, GFW Pioneer Express FFA.
Minnesota junior and senior high schools currently serve 35,000 agriculture students, and of them, more than 12,000 are active FFA members of the 200-plus chapters across the state. FFA serves communities of all sizes, from small, rural farm towns to the state’s biggest urban areas. Minneapolis plans to start an FFA chapter this fall. In a typical year, FFA State Convention would bring 4,000 students to the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus to celebrate. But this was not a typical year.
“The state officers chose the theme ‘Worth It,’ because they acknowledge that this is a challenging year, but at the end of the year it was all still worth it,” said Val Aarsvold, executive director of Minnesota FFA Foundation. “The majority of the convention has been accessed in an on-demand format, so that when a group of students gather together, locally or when individual students want, they can watch certain pieces throughout the days.”
The many speakers, awards and workshops that were recorded in advance can still be viewed at the FFA State Convention event website.
One live activity was met with great excitement from the students. State officers secretly moved across the state to surprise them and let them know they had been selected as one of this year’s “State Stars.” On the first day of FFA State Convention, they surprised a high school senior from the Austin FFA chapter, Braden Greibrok, in his classroom and announced that he is the 2021 Minnesota State Star in Agriscience.
“He had no clue and was totally surprised!” Aarsvold said.
Another highlight of FFA State Convention were the sponsored events with proficiency winners. Typically, 40 students would join a Zoom meeting with representatives of sponsoring organizations — often people who had come up through the ag industry and experienced success in their careers. These business leaders offered the students career advice.
Aarsvold reported that a typical message was “Don’t give up! Keep working! Set your goals in place, but also know you might need to be flexible.”
“One of our sponsors shared that when she was starting out, her passion was for a particular species of livestock, but things didn’t go quite as planned, and actually, she feels that it has turned out perfectly,” she said “She told us, ‘I was able to get started, and then I found an opportunity, and so I have had a successful career.’ The message she shared with the kids is ‘be willing to take an opportunity and run with it.’ It’s great advice.”
The new State FFA Secretary, Nicole Koziolek, from Randolph, offers lots of inspiration to those who want to enter a career in agriculture. She began her high school career as a shy, introverted student, who found it difficult to speak publicly. Now she is a confident public speaker who can’t wait for the next opportunity to share information and insights about agriculture and how the food system works. Koziolek’s current dream is to become an ag communicator, in addition to taking the reins at her family corn and soybean farm operation. During FFA State Convention, she represented her peers at an important meeting.
FFA Foundation and Minnesota AgriGrowth Council hosted a gathering called “Making a Difference in Agriculture — One Student at a Time.” Organizations that support agriculture, food and natural resources programs in the schools focused on FFA’s role as a developer of talent for the fast-growing, fast-changing agriculture industry.
Agriculture, of course, is not one industry but a whole spectrum of industries, spanning production and processing of the things we need for our society to thrive, such as food, clothing, energy and building materials.
One of the key elements to FFA’s mission of shaping a student’s career in agriculture is to extend learning beyond the classroom and bring it into the real world with a program called the supervised agricultural experience.
Koziolek spoke about her supervised agricultural experience, for which she rented 20 acres of land from her parents and farmed them.
“It’s kind of a scaled-down version of what my family looks like,” Koziolek said. “It was a good glimpse into all this, getting to know that I like plants and that I like everything that goes into it.”
Minnesota FFA Foundation’s Star Partner Program has assured the ability to grow the network of ag classrooms and FFA chapters.
“Minnesota Corn Growers Association is a Star Partner,” Aarsvold said. “The dollars that come in go to support students’ development and to support teachers. It also helps to develop that network, so that communities know how to advocate for their ag education program and their community. When schools face tight budgets, that could impact their agricultural education programs. With the help of programs supported through the Star Partner Program, there are local community members who can advocate for proper funding of education programs. Star Partners, including Minnesota Corn Growers Association, are key in FFA program success.”
