Published: August 03, 2009 10:51 am      

Preparing for the Future

We're more than cows, sows and plows

COMMERCE — Elizabeth Tarrant recently returned home from the Dallas Convention Center where she served as a Foundation Ambassador at the 81st Annual Texas Future Farmers of America (FFA) Convention, held July 7-10.

Tarrant had been a member of Junior FFA for almost 10 years and will soon be entering her fourth year of FFA, one of the nation’s largest state FFA associations with a membership of more than 63,000 and 1,000 local chapters, at Commerce High School where she will be a senior this year.

Being a part of this organization and being chosen as an ambassador for the convention is a source of pride for Tarrant.

“It’s like any other convention except it’s pretty much all kids,” said Tarrant of her experience. “Blue and gold jackets are everywhere. There’s a lot of pride involved because when you walk into the convention center you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m part of a really great organization.”

Tarrant underwent a competitive application process and received an extensive four-hour training session, prior to the start of the convention, focused on corporate relations.

This helped to prepare her for her ambassadorial duties as the ambassadors served as the official liaisons to the sponsors, special guests and dignitaries on behalf of the Texas FFA.

“I was so honored to be chosen as an ambassador,” she said. “We were essentially the go-fers for the sponsors and special guests, though we did much more than that. We were told we’d be the face of FFA.”

When Tarrant arrived at the Dallas Convention Center, the first thing on the agenda was training.

“They told me that this was going to be the one week in my educational career that I would be so tired that I’d probably sleep for a week afterward,” she said.

The first training session the ambassadors attended was Interacting with Adults 101.

“This helped us when it came to interacting with the sponsors, like Justin Boots and McCoy’s Building Supply, who believe in the FFA program and pay so much a year for us to do be able to participate in contests, competitions, shows and conventions,” said Tarrant.

Handshaking 101 followed.

“A really cool thing I learned in that class was that when you shake an person’s hand that is older than you they tend to squeeze really, really, really hard and it hurts,” said Tarrant with a laugh. “They taught us if you do thumb pad to thumb pad that won’t happen. I was actually a volunteer for the handshaking, and it really does work.”

Another duty of the ambassadors was to tell anyone interested how FFA differs from other organizations and to try to remove the stigma associated with FFA.

“FFA has a stigma of cows, sows and plows,” she said. “I don’t like that because people who aren’t in FFA think all we do is farm and show cows at the Fair, but that’s definitely not true. I show, yes, but I do so much more than that.”

Through FFA Tarrant has attended speaking competitions, has been a horticulture judge, and takes a class called Floral design.

“The big difference for us, the reason why we’re the best youth organization, is that with our projects, if you don’t take care of something, something dies,” she said. “I think that’s why we’re more elite when compared to other organizations because we have so much more responsibility and are able to handle more in the real world because we’ve had that experience.”

One of Tarrant’s favorite things within FFA is being a horticulture judge and making floral designs.

“That’s really my thing,” she said. “I’m really the only one in our Commerce chapter that’s into horticulture. Everyone else shows animals or works in shop and I’m out there watering the plants and taking care of the greenhouse.”

Tarrant wants to attend Texas A&M University-College Station when she graduates from Commerce High School this coming year, where she plans to major in Ag Communications.

Aside from being involved in FFA, Tarrant plays the flute in the Commerce High School Band, has been a member of the Color Guard and is an old hat when it comes to public speaking.

“She commands attention,” said Lisa Tarrant, Elizabeth’s mother. “When she gets to the microphone and starts to speak everyone just stops to listen. It’s amazing to watch.”

Tarrant attributes her success in public speaking to FFA.

“I really believe it’s helped me be a better speaker,” she said. “I haven’t even taken a speech class yet. It’s also helped me when it comes to networking and interacting with higher ups. It allowed me to get over my nervousness and realize they’re just regular people. There’s nothing different about them, they just have a lot of money.”

Tarrant believes when she gets out into the real world her experiences in FFA will help her be further along than some of her peers that haven’t had the chances to learn from an organization that prides itself on preparing students for premier leadership, personal growth and career success.