Belleville FFA Goes to Indy!

It's 3:30 a.m., on Wednesday, October 19th, and 10 Belleville FFA members, including Clarice Loeffelholz, Rachel Uebelacker, Denise Rankin, Dan Meier, Tony O'Connor, Tyler Varney, Leah Hanna, Brianna Halverson, Amanda Lettman, and Mitchell Mussehl, along with New Glarus, Monroe, Verona, and Argyle's FFA, are boarding the bus to head to our first stop of a long day - Fair Oaks Farm. We were able to tour the large farm which houses over 30,000 milking cows! These cows together produce over 280,000 gallons of milk a day. That's enough milk to quench the thirst of the entire city of Chicago! We also toured the swine facilities and saw everything from farrowing to market hogs.  After a fun morning of learning about farming, we ended our first day in Indiana by attending the concert of Chris Young and Cole Swindell. What a great concert they put on! As tired as we all were, everyone was still up and dancing!
It's now Thursday the 20th. Bright and early we are all headed to the opening Convention Session. As we sit in a room with 53,000 other FFA members from around the United States and surrounding territories, we are convinced by National FFA President, Taylor McNeel, that our world could use some transforming. Us as FFA members need to work together and help others along the way. Our start is in our own communities. Even the most simple actions such as picking up garbage off of the streets is a start to transforming our sometimes unhappy country. The rest of our day consisted of doing workshops at the career show. We got to explore careers that are Agriculture related, college booths, and businesses and organizations, such as the US Army. The options of careers to learn about seemed endless! Our last activity at the convention center was a hypnotist show. It was great way to have a good laugh watching fellow advisors and members get hypnotized! We ended our second long day with a pizza and Packer party back at the hotel!
Our last day in Indiana was on Friday the 21st, and it consisted of a full day seeing and experiencing anything we may have missed such as sessions, workshops, or career shows. Some of us also got to visit the Indianapolis mall and zoo! It was a relaxing day to catch up on what we wanted to see. Indianapolis was a great city to experience. We headed for Wisconsin around 5:00 p.m., and arrived back home safely thanks to our wonderful bus driver.
While we headed home, Mrs. Knudson stayed and met up with Whitney Brown and her family.  On Saturday morning, Whitney received her American FFA Degree at the Lucas Oil Stadium.  This is the highest degree that an FFA member can earn and Whitney logged her many hours required for this award through her work on her family's dairy farm.  This is an amazing accomplishment and we are all so proud of her.  
The 2016 National FFA Convention will be remembered with great knowledge, memories, and experiences. We are excited to go back to Indy next fall!