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Retiring Address: Chase Rose
You are here…Now what?
At my first national convention
here in Indy I was sitting right here with
my best friends Skyler, Steel, Sam and
Danny. Coming from a small town in Montana
with 25 kids in our whole class, national convention
was about the coolest thing we had ever seen.
Missing a week of school for FFA sounded good to us and
we figured that if there were more than 50,000 FFA members
in Indy that worked out to be well over 25,000 girls! When I first
got to national convention and saw the thousands of people, the
career show, the sessions, the concert, I knew right then that I
wanted to do and try everything that FFA had to offer. But for
me, FFA didn’t start at convention. In fact, it all began quite a
while before that…these were my first FFA jackets.
At 5 years old with my name on the front and Shields Valley
on the back I was ready to throw this baby on and take off with
my dad and all the “big kids.” If it had to do with FFA I was in!
Growing up at this age and in these jackets, I had the chance to
see what this organization did for so many of my dad’s students,
and by the time I made it to my first national FFA convention I
knew right where I wanted to be.
Getting to where we truly want to be isn’t always easy and
not always obvious. But if we use our past to propel us forward
and focus in each day we will all find ourselves not only where
we want to be but right where we need to be.
This year has been a true privilege to have met so many
incredible people and heard such incredible stories across the
country. One of those stories that I will never forget was on a
trip to West Virginia. I was visiting with an agriculture teacher
by the name of Connie Scarboro, who is with us here tonight,
and she was telling me about all of her students, and what they
were up to. But one student in particular stood out to me, a
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