Mizzou
FFA comes to a close for 2006
Brooke Tacker, posted Dec. 5, 2006
Tuesday, Nov. 28 about 30 members of Mizzou FFA went to its
end-of-the-year banquet at Bandana’s Restaurant on Providence
Road. New officers were announced and former officers said
their farewells; the outstanding freshman and outstanding
officer were recognized; all the year’s events were
recounted, and it all happened amid the smell of barbecue.
“[Mizzou FFA] is more than a meet-once-a-month club
you can put on your resume,” Mizzou FFA Advisor Kelley
Marchbanks said. “It is about going out and making a
difference.”
Selling T-shirts and helping with the talent selection at
the state FFA convention, buying gifts for a three-person
family through Adopt-a-Family, raising the most money the
first night of Bowl Over Cancer, leading C.O.D.E. and competing
in CAFNR Week were all on this year’s Mizzou FFA list
of accomplishments.
Freshmen in Mizzou FFA were not able to participate in many
of these events because they just joined this semester.
“It has been weird,” Freshman Kristi Erisman said.
“I don’t always know what’s going on. Not
that they don’t tell you.”
Erisman was involved in FFA at Centralia High School before
she came to MU. She already knew a lot of people through this
previous FFA experience.
This year’s Outstanding Freshman was Joyce Eckstein
and the Outstanding Officer was Marin Summers. The new officers
are Julie Shuck, CAFNR Student Council representative; Bridgette
Gregory, reporter; Cory Cawthorn, treasurer; Stacy Craighead,
secretary; Marcus Petree, vice-president; and Laura Denker,
president.
David Fraizer, an agriculture education PhD student at MU,
was the guest speaker for the banquet. He has been heavily
involved in FFA for several years. Fraiser came to MU this
year from a 15-year agriculture teaching career in Texas.
He began his speech with the question, “Who has ever
been afraid of the dark?” Fraiser asked this question
to show that college students fear the unknown, just like
when they were kids and feared the dark.
Some fears he said college students have are reality, failure
and the future. Fraiser used different toys to express these
fears and also reasons why students should not be scared of
them, but accept them as what is to come.
“Don’t forget to reward yourself sometimes,”
Fraiser said.
This advice showed his point of not getting caught up in success,
but to remain on track even when problems, like failure, arise.
