BOE-Life changing experience

Rilee Erickson

Mr. Primrose

Honors 11 English

11 November 2009

 

My Life Changing Experience

My first class of my high school career. I walked into the Ag-Ed room thinking my goodness i feel so little. Little did I know how much that room would change my life in the the next four years. I had heard good things about the advisor and heard that he was an easy guy to get along with if you were willing to show him that you were there to work and that you were responible. I will never forget the fist lecture that we got about needing to become leaders in order to earn respect and also give respect in return. We began by talking about cattle breeds, something I had been around my whole life and was very familiar with. As the year progressed I started to feel more comfortable about myself, the friends I had, the classes i was taking, and then the time came to do the FFA Creed. I had never been much of a public speaker, everytime that i would speak a slow redness would creep up my neck and then my whole face would be flushed, making me feel all the more insecure about speaking. I memorized the FFA Creed with ease of course, the hard part was reciting it to my ag advisor and the judges in the Ag-Ed room at the chapter competition. The redness did come, as I thought it would, but my speaking was the best it had ever been. After everyone that was competing had recited the creed I found out that I was the one chosen to represent Lander FFA at the district speaking contest. The next months caused several nervous moments not only for me, but for my ag advisor that knew the potential I had as a speaker. I did good, however, I only got as far as State FFA Convention. It was a great learning experience and one that I used as I started participating in livestock judging and the prepared speaking contest my Sophmore and Junior years. In livestock judging the next year I was awarded 3rd man overall in the reasons part of the contest, reasons are just a speech about why you placed each animal over the other, it was a amazing achievment for me and i was very surprised to see that I had done so good in the contest. At the end of my freshman year as an FFA member I was elected into a chapter office as the Vice President and with it came even more responsibility, the responsibiltiy i had to prove to my advisor that I was capable of