Mariah Fox – VP

Growing up with a father as an agriculture educator, I was always exposed to the contests offered in FFA. In a sense, I was almost like an honorary member of each team. Every contest season, I was there to help dad with training his team. The knowledge and experience I received, while watching my dad prepare teams for competition made me eager to be part of my own contest team, when I became a FFA member.

My freshman year, I competed in the knowledge contest; my sophomore year, I was on the dairy cattle team. My junior year, I was a member of my favorite team, ag sales. Having achieved previous success increased my excitement for my senior year when I signed up for the meats team. However, as the list started to fill up for tryouts, I noticed seven others on the list. This meant we had to cut people for the final team.

For the next month, I studied meats like it was going out of style. I thought I was ready to claim my spot on the team, however, after taking the test I did not make the cut. Devastation was all I felt, and I didn’t know what team I would be on. After a talk with my advisor, I decided on job interview. This last-minute decision taught me so much.

In life, we always seem to have a plan of where we want to go and what we want to do. Sometimes our plans change, and we are left trying to figure out what is next. It’s always good to have a back up plan. You never know where life will take you, but with a plan you will feel more secure.