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Sectional Information - Section Five
Cory Brown - Vice President
Belleville FFA Chapter - Section 5
cbrown@wisconsinffa.org
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More Firsts for Me!
Aug. 30, 2010
Well I have another oddity first that happened on my way home from Jag Lake with Noah, Julie, and Alicia. On the way home we stopped in Wausau for lunch at Noodles & Company, and believe it or not that was my first time ever eating at Noodles. And it was delicious!
Then Tuesday Noah and I headed to the West Side Agricultural Research Station for the Dane County FFA Officer Workshops. Chapter officers that attend had the opportunity to work with other teams of officers from across Dane county as well as from Green and Rock counties. The officers gathered new ideas from other chapters in addition to eating some delicious pizza.
After Filling our minds and bellies we got down to business. As a service project the officers helped the station pick melons, apples, and grapes. They also removed the melon vines and sweet corn stalks. The members then moved on to picking and eating raspberries. Fun fact of the day! Did you know that there are white raspberries? I didn’t until Tuesday… it was a truly astonishing sight!
Home and Off Again!
Aug. 17, 2010
After coming home for a grand total of 30 hours after being up at the Wisconsin State Fair for 11 days, the team and I are heading off to Jag Lake this morning! While at home I took time to savor the little things...cheese and crackers, a home cooked meal, my own bed!That got me thinking about how often we over look all the little things in our life. So why not take today and give thanks for all the little things that make up your day: a car that runs, socks with no holes, or even something as little as a working pen when you need one.
Where Has Time Gone?
Aug. 15, 2010
I can't believe that it is already the last day of the Wisconsin State Fair! It seems like just yesterday the fair began. I want to say thank you for all the members that helped out this year in the Discovery Barnyard, Congratulations to all the members that participate in the fair! I can't wait to see everyone again this year.
My time in the Discovery Barnyard has been amazing for me. That is because I enjoy telling people about my lifestyle in Agriculture. I was amazed how many people are disconnected from agriculture.
Do any of you remember my fair time challenge to promote agriculture? I did my part to promote. I spent half an hour talking to a group of fair goers about how farmers make a living and how we earn our pay checks.
Send me an e-mail about your promotions and I will post the best storied on my blog at the end of the month!
My Fair Challenge
Aug. 07, 2010
The Wisconsin State Officer team and I are here in West Allis, Wisconsin at the Wisconsin State Fair! While we are here we are not only having fun but also teaching fair goers about vegetables during the Veggie 500 as well as the Discovery Barnyard where people can meet face to face our fabulous farm animals!
Last year during the 82nd National FFA Convention I was able to listen to Mike Rowe speak. In the speech that he talked about how we can no longer preach to the choir about the issues we are facing in agriculture today. The more and more I think about it Mike Rowe is right. In our Creed the first thing we say is, “I believe in the future of agriculture….” But believing in agriculture is only part of the battle. The other part is following through with your belief. Before 1969, America always believed in landing a man on the moon but we didn’t stop at believing and now today we can proudly say we placed the first foot prints on the moon. My challenge for you is to go out and promote agriculture in some way. Weather its thought your Food For America project or you start up a conversation with a person that may not know much about agriculture. Maybe you will start a fire within that person. Maybe that fire will grow into a wild fire. And maybe that wildfire may spread from that person to another person and the passion for agriculture will spread.
What a crazy week!
Jul. 27, 2010
I officially drove the furthest away from home going up to Farm Technology Days at the Peterson Family Dairy in River Falls. Let me tell you, I love Farm Technology Days! The last four of them I competed in the Soil Judging contest. While this year I got to go as a state officer and witness the best of the best in the state for the Safe Tractor Operation event. Hats off to all the contestants in both Soil Judging and Safe Tractor Operation! Another reason I love Farm Tech Days is I get to see all the fun toys I wish I could play with on my farm but I could never afford! But, that is beside the point. My roomie, Noah, and I had an amazing host family the Huppert’s, who just happen to live right across the road from Farm Tech Days! Well the weather was amazing…for the first two days. Then on the last day, Thursday, Mother Nature thought it would be funny to let loose a monsoon! And it just so happened that morning Noah and I had the bright idea of parking in the hayfield parking lot instead of just walking over like we did the other two days. Long story short, when we finally got back to my car after huddling under the farm tour tent for a few hours while it poured rain, we found a small river running in the muddy parking lot and two utility vans stuck one row over from us. After nearly getting stuck myself, I finally get out of that swampy parking lot…by driving in reverse! Then another first! I bought gas for the first time from a gas station!
Well after making it home, I had time for some R & R… or so I thought. You see when you’re a state officer and you live on a farm your parents take full advantage of your time off from FFA duties. And so haying has begun!
And finally today, what a b-e-a-utiful day! Especially since it was the Wisconsin FFA Foundation golf outing in Cottage Grove! After running a putting contest all morning I went in and had some delicious brats and hamburgers for lunch! Then the real fun began! For the auction, they got their hands of an Agco kiddie peddle tractor to sell! And lucky me, I got to display it by driving it around the club house! It even had its own wagon! Next year those tractor driving contestents better watch out because Cory Brown is in the house! With a peddle tractor…
Fair Time!
Jul. 17, 2010
So I have been hanging out at the Dane County Fair this week, meeting all sorts of cool people and members; for instance, Wisconsin Heights FFA. I was trying to help a fellow member in distress. The other members of her chapter who were showing with her had put her folding chair and cell phone on top of the overhead doors in the dairy barn. I tried to assist her but unfortunately I was “not able” to jump the 12 inches to retrieve the chair and phone.
I love to talk to other showmen at the fair but I would have to say my favorite part is talking to all the people that pass though the farm. Most of them have a relative that owns a farm but then there are those people that have never seen a cow before. Those types of people are my favorite. I love the look they get on their face when you ask if they want to pet a cow… it’s like they are a kid in a candy store! And what makes it even better is if the cow-or in more common cases a calf- moves just a step or swishes its tail and they freak out!
Then there are those who come through the barn and want to learn about cows…even if they don’t know a thing about agriculture. I would have to say those people are my favorite. For it is those who truly want to know about agriculture and where their food comes that we can reach and start to reverse our tendency of disconnecting ourselves with our food.
To end on I completely unrelated note, but one that holds true to being and FFA member or a good person in general, is a story about Abraham Lincoln that I read recently. One day one of Lincoln’s cabinet members walked into Lincoln’s office and saw the president blacking his shoes. He then said to Lincoln, “Why are you blacking your own shoes?” to which President Lincoln responded, “Then whose shoes to you wish me to blacken?” Even as the President of the United States of America Lincoln still was willing to serve, not only himself but others as well. In the FFA Motto it states that we are living to serve and even though Lincoln was three score and three years before the FFA was founded he is an excellent model of service.
In a few days our team will be heading to Farm Technology Days! This is one of my favorite farm shows, not only because of all the big boy toys but STATE SOIL JUDGING!!! Man I love to look at dirt and then you throw on the tractor operation challenge on top of that! It makes for a good time. I look forward to meeting the members of the teams and hope to see some familiar faces.
Cory Brown
2010-2011 State Vice-President
Over and Out!
Here, There and Everywhere!!!
Jul. 10, 2010
I hope everyone had an awesome Fourth of July!
I headed down to the Stoughton Fair last Sunday. So if any of you FFA members saw me, and I looked familiar now you know why! I would like to congratulate the exhibitor that I talked to while at the fair, it’s a job well done.
The team and I just returned from Springfield, Illinois where we attended the National Leadership Conference of State Officers or NLCSO. While there, we worked with the state officer teams from Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Kentucky. While down there we; learned how to be better officer teams, improved our presentation skills, brushed up on topics that affect us as FFA members, and began planning for SLW’s and FIRE!
But we didn’t learn just about FFA and agriculture while we were down there. First we went to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum where we learned about the life of one of the greatest leaders in American history. We really got lucky while at the museum, they had a temporary exhibit about Lincoln’s contribution to agriculture. Then on top of that there was a traveling exhibit that had one of Lincoln’s top hats, you could even see the finger indentions where he would tip his hat! Then there was also a copy of the Gettysburg Address hand written by Abraham Lincoln himself!!! Then to put icing on the cake, there was an older gentleman running the cashier at the gift shop and it turned out that he was an FFA member himself about 60 years ago… and he was the president of the Tennessee Association of FFA!
This coming week I will be at the Dane County Fair all five days! So until next time…Keep it classy Wisconsin.
Off and Running
Jul. 01, 2010
Wow! That’s all I can say.
Lets start with BLAST Off. What do you get when you take 11 people from all over Wisconsin and throw them all in Spencer, Wisconsin? You get an amazing officer team!
While at Spencer we trained with Cory...not me but Cory Epler. We learned what strengths we possess and how we can use them to better the team, that our team loves grapes, and simply put...how to be the best that we can be.
After a long exhausting BLAST Off we got a few days of rest. Only to be thrown right at the advisors during the convention of the Wisconsin Association of Agricultural Educators! While in Madison we refreshed ourselves about everything the FFA has to offer. From CDEs and SAEs to alumni and scholarships we covered them all. Then on Wednesday night we announced the State FFA theme.
National FFA gives its members Infinite Potential and it is the member that fuel Wisconsin FFA. The Advisors of the chapters provide the spark for our members. It is with these two components the fuel and the spark that move FFA. There for the Wisconsin Association of FFA is…
Powered by Potential!
Hello Wisconsin!!!
Jun. 19, 2010
I would first like to congratulate the past state officer team for an amazing convention, all the members, guest, and sponsors that fill it with life, and say good job to all the members that received awards and honors.
Next, I will say thank you to the members for giving me this amazing opportunity to serve as your State Vice President for this next year. I look forward to my year of service to the greatest organization around!
And I will end this post with a quote that will be my personal motto for the coming year.
"The best way to predict the future is to create it".
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