The 89th Pennsylvania FFA State Convention

FFA members work on assembling an arrangement during the Floriculture CDE.

The 89th Pennsylvania FFA State Convention and Activities Week was held at Penn State University from June 11th through the 14th. Throughout the week, Pennsylvania FFA members attended the convention to compete in various Career Development Events and Leadership Development Events (CDE's and LDE's), discuss delegate issues, and interview and select the new 2018 - 2019 Pennsylvania FFA Officer Team.

Penn State Teach Ag was well-represented as the Teach Ag! Avengers ran two different workshops for FFA members during the week, a new addition to the programming at State Convention. These workshops were titled, "Exploring Careers in Agriculture" and "Promoting Your Chapter Through Digital Storytelling; with each workshop respectively aimed at allowing students to explore their own career path and utilizing digital media to help build the stories of their own FFA chapters. Many of our upcoming student teachers took this opportunity to spend the week with their soon-to-be cooperating programs as well.

Trey Elizondo with the Nittany Lion Shrine.

We had the honor of having a past National Officer as a guest and keynote speaker during State Convention, Mr. Trey Elizondo. Last year he served as the National Western Region Vice President. He spent the week with PA FFA members, visited CDE's, took a tour of campus, and spent some time with Penn State AEE students. His keynote address inspired FFA members to let the fear in their lives take the back seat in order for them achieve their goals and have the unique experiences afforded to them.

Student success is always an incredible thing to see, and this year was no exception. Awards were given for CDE's and LDE's, special recognition and thanks given to those who make the Pennsylvania FFA and State Convention possible, and students at Penn State were able to recognize those who took the steps to fill the shoes of their own agricultural teachers for a day with the Teach Ag! Essay Contest ran by LEAD Society at Penn State.

Samuel Loy (Right), and his brother Andy Loy (Left).

We are very proud to announce that one of our own members of Penn State Teach Ag, Samuel Loy, was selected to serve as the 2018 - 2019 State Reporter. Under his new duty he will be representing and serving almost 13,000 FFA members across the Commonwealth.

Sam comes from the Greenwood FFA Chapter in Millerstown, Pennsylvania, where has was a high school FFA member and eventual president of the Greenwood chapter in the 2016 - 2017 year. He started at Penn State this past year, majoring in Agricultural and Extension Education, also serving as a member of the Teach Ag! Avengers and a brother of Alpha Zeta. He said what he is most excited for is to, "get the opportunity to impact students the same way state officers have impacted me". He's looking forward to all the new people he'll be able to meet, and he's already excited to be at the ACES conference in the spring. We are all beyond proud of him as he begins his journey as a state officer and dedicates himself to a year of service to Pennsylvania FFA members.

The new 2018 -2019 State Officer team is as follows (From L to R):

Treasurer: Abigail Yoder from Central Columbia

Chaplain: Millena Bashore from Northern Lebanon

Reporter: Samuel Loy from Greenwood

Vice President: Jacob Kinzer from East Juniata

Sentinal: Roarke Miller from Little Dutchmen

President: Jenna Harnish from Athens

Secretary: Morgan Bear from Big Spring

We wish them all luck as they dedicate the next year of their lives to the service of FFA members across the Commonwealth!

Hunter Kauffman

Team Leader, @TeachAgPSU Communications

Wildlife and Fisheries Science

College of Agricultural Sciences