LEXINGTON, Ky --- More than 2,000 students from across the bluegrass state, visited the city of Lexington to attend the 90th annual Kentucky Future Farmers of America statewide convention.
In case you missed it, here are five things to know about 90th Annual Kentucky State FFA Convention:
- The State FFA Convention is the longest-running student organization meeting in Kentucky
- Before the convention started, almost 200 FFA members packed about 30,000 meals to be distributed to the world’s most vulnerable children, as part of the Kentucky FFA Day of Service
- More than 200 members from 26 Kentucky schools participated in the State Agriscience Fair on June 12
- At the conclusion of the 2019 convention on June 13, more than 480 members received the State FFA Degree
- Kentucky FFA has more than 13,500 members in 152 chapters across the state
"You got people from Western Kentucky meeting people from Eastern Kentucky and I really think that the members are sucking it all in and really loving the 90th state convention,” says Amber Burton, State Officer of Future Farmers of America, Kentucky chapter.
In Burton's State Officer role, she serves as an advisor to several hundred high-school FFA members, some who split their time at this year’s convention competing in career and leadership development contests, while others took part in the state Agriscience fair.
“Agriscience is a competition where kids take what they’ve learned in the classroom, they research about it, find things that they have an interest in and then they just put those into a project and get to showcase those skills,” adds Burton.
Jessica Hicks is a senior at Marshall County High School and says this statewide convention has been marked on her calendar for months,“I wanted to compete and try my hardest and competing against other people, letting them know the difference between organic seeds and non-organic seeds.”
Hicks says thanks to her, 'Lettuce Eat' project, she has been able to gain new knowledge about the agricultural industry through her research, that gave her results and recommendations that she was able to share with judges who scored her project. She now hopes her project will be considered strong enough to advance and represent Kentucky at the national FFA convention in October 2019.
“Everytime I give some sort of presentation, it’s nerve-racking, but at the same time it’s exciting because you get to meet new people and you get to have a good time. I’ve never really done a study like this about seeds and once I decided to do that, it really brought an idea of me wanting to run my own greenhouse and whether I want to grow organic stuff or non-organic stuff,” mentions Hicks.