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Inclement weather (spell that ‘more snow’) caused our attendance to be a bit lower, but we still had an interested and active group on hand when we met Thursday at Wakonda Club for our weekly meeting. President Shawn Mullen, just back from a few days in the FL sun, welcomed us and called on Colleen Messenger to lead us in our now-traditional moment of inspiration, flag pledge and recitation of the Four-Way Test. Her selection for the inspiration was most appropriate, tying in directly to the topic of our speaker for the day. Randy Worth reminded us of the outing of the Wheels affinity group on Saturday which likely will be a matter of past tense by the time readers see this. But it sounds like a real winner and we wish all the attendees well.
President Shawn invited new member Mike Carroll to the lectern and shared information about Mike, a past member of the Rotary a.m. club, but now re-joining Rotary. Be sure to greet him when you next see him. Mark Snell then introduced our speaker for the day, Scott Johnson, Executive Director of the Iowa FFA (Future Farmers of America) Association, where he has served since January of 2012. A native of the Guttenberg, IA, area, he grew up on a farm and was an FFA member in high school, after which he attended and graduated from ISU with a major in Agricultural Education. He taught Ag Education at Wall Lake View Auburn Community Schools in northwest Iowa for ten years, during which his students there achieved notable success, including multiple state champion events. Since assuming his present duties, he has led the state organization through a time of considerable growth and accomplishments, including three National FFA officers in the last five years and two America Star Award winners. While at the Wall Lake area schools, he earned a Master’s Degree in Education from Morningside College in Sioux City.
A reason for this perhaps lengthy review of Scott’s background and accomplishments is to show the good fortune of matching up such a well-qualified person with an organization that has such a critical and demanding set of responsibilities in our present state and national scene. Iowa FFA was founded in 1929 at ISU, its motto being “Learning to do, doing to learn, earning to live, living to serve.” At present, there are 235 chapters and 15, 479 members, the most in Iowa history, and ranking it eleventh nationally in terms of state totals. It had earlier approached a similar total membership figure, but the farm crisis of the early 1980’s took a toll on membership and the rebuilding process has been necessary since then. Four or five more chapters are expected to be formed this next year. In Iowa, in order for a school to host an FFA chapter, it must have a certified ag education program containing certain learning components. FFA builds upon those components, offering an array of competitive opportunities in which members develop their capabilities and skills in leadership. In the question and answer session, he was asked how, in the face of diminishing numbers of farm families and children today as against earlier times, could FFA membership numbers be growing to the extent they are? He responded that ag careers are becoming more attractive to young people, given that studies show that in recent economic downturns, those geographical areas whose economies are more ag-related fared better than many others. Also, the transferability of learning between those skills that are emphasized in FFA and those needed in other vocations makes it more valuable to students as well as potential employers. As an indication that FFA is much more than a just a rural, small school enterprise, 27 of the 28 largest metro areas in the country are home to FFA chapters. In total, there are about 700,000 members in 8,000 chapters throughout the nation.
Scott Johnson is obviously a fine leader of an organization very important to Iowa and we appreciate his taking time to speak to us today.