National FFA Convention…The greatest words I have ever heard. Who else wouldn’t want to be around 50,000 people who love exactly what you do? Of course I knew that the WV State FFA Officers would be attending, with some of us being delegates and one of the nine being able to carry the West Virginia Flag in front of 50 thousand plus people and national television. When I found out that I was going to be the lucky one to do the flag barring I cried…yep balled like a baby. I have only wanted to do that since I started FFA so it was kind of a big deal for me :)
When Leaving for National Convention I was told to only bring ONE bag. So I though well there are two people not going so I would be okay if I packed a suit case and then my hanging stuff in another. Well much to my surprise we did not have a big vehicle; we had Tiny Timmy The Tahoe. Enterprise Thank you so much for the most uncomfortable ride of my LIFE!!! Eleanor Porter and I shared a one passenger back seat crammed next to about two other peoples extra bags for about a total of 6 HOURS. OMG we were packed like a bunch of sardines. We all said that they would know it was West Virginia pulling up to the hotel because we also had Luggage on top of (TTTT) aka Timmy.
The Rest of the time there wasn’t bad Eleanor moved up with the other three in the middle seat and I sat in the back and slept the whole way there. We stopped at the air force museum which was pretty cool considering I had been there the year before…I got to see some new things that I didn’t the year before. We also stopped at The Indianapolis Speedway and did the Kiss the Brick tour which was awesome :) if you would like to see pictures you can add me of Facebook!!!
The rest of the week at National Convention went pretty weird. Anytime something could have happened it did. On the first morning we had to go to a press conference upon walking in the doors of the convention center Dr. Larry Case was about to step out of the vehicle, we all stopped and waited to meet him. He shook all of our hands and made funny jokes with us. Dr. Case even escorted us to the conference which might I add was the highlight of my day :) as you may know from reading my fellow state officers blogs we like to take the scenic route well again we did and we got off a wrong exit which had looked familiar to me from the year before. It ended up being the National FFA Center when most people have never been it was closed but at least the other state officers and Mr. Hughes got to see it kind of! Toby Keith…Eleanor….need I say more. I seriously think she is his biggest fan…well like always we like the scenic route so of course we would walk out the wrong door after the concert well walking around back to the front of the building we pass this 2010 platinum F-150 series Ford Truck and just kidding I said hey I bet that’s Toby Keith’s truck and when everyone looked he was getting out the van beside it and walking VERY fast to his tour bus. But just in the ten foot space that we saw him walk through Eleanor screams OMG its Toby Keith and he turned and said Hey to us.... probably the coolest thing that has ever happened to us. For the rest of the week things like that kept on happening to us like meeting Mr. Austin Harvey one of the Key Speakers or Mr. Hughes meeting his daughter exactly on the same block that he was walking on. If it wasn’t planned it was sure to happen :) we all had a wonderful week and made a lot of new friends from different states that I think we will be able to keep for a long time…. I LOVE FFA <3
To Be Continued…A Day in the Life….of A West Virginia State FFA Officer