Rob:  When it began in 1928, the Future Farmers of America was designed to promote agricultural education.  In the years since then, the name has been shortened to FFA and the scope broadened to include students in all walks of life, and this past week, the Cox Convention Center was full of young men and women decked out in their FFA blue and gold.
Rob:  From its legendary chorus to the youthful enthusiasm Oklahoma’s FFA Convention is truly all American.  It’s a two-day celebration that brings students together from across the state.
GIRL:  There are just so many things you can do here, whether you’re showing an animal, judging livestock, or you’re giving a speech.  Everybody can be a part of the FFA.  It doesn’t matter where you’re from.
Rob:  Interests that are reflective of its membership, across the nation, more than a third of FFA students are now from urban areas.
Jack Staats:  Our curriculum is changing all the time, opportunities for students to do so many other areas, to get into so many other things, so many different aspects of agriculture that wouldn’t even have been in existence ten years ago.
Rob:  Teaching skills that can last a lifetime.  Former Miss Oklahoma and Miss America finalist, Elizabeth Kinney, credits her success with lessons learned while wearing a blue and gold jacket.
Elizabeth Kinney:  FFA was kind of the foundation for me.  I started in eighth grade, kind of one of those insecure junior high students, and went to an FFA Leadership Conference where the first time I learned about setting goals, first time I learned about leaderships skills that I would need to be a success.  And it was there, in eighth grade, that I set a goal to be Miss Oklahoma.  I set a goal to be a news anchor some day.  I set a goal to, you know, achieve good things at Oklahoma State.  And a lot of those goals, I was able to realize because of FFA, because of the leadership skills that I learned, because of the people I met.  FFA truly, I mean, I credit FFA for my success in everything else that I have done in my life; it all started here.
Rob:  And for long time Congressman Wes Watkins, this year’s convention has special significance.
Wes Watkins:  It was a terrific organization fifty years ago when I served as state FFA president.  And it was a year that really molded and shaped my life and set me off on a pace on what I’ve been able to do.  And, I’m still trying to repay the FFA, really, for all the things it’s done.
Rob:  Guidance that continues for today’s youth, from an organization that’s keeping up with the times while still honoring its agricultural roots.