With students coming from all across the district, the FFA District Leadership and Career Development Events were an important event for Steinbrenner’s FFA students. The event took place on Jan. 18, and while there, students learned valuable skills in public speaking and leadership skills. From court procedures and public interviews to extemporaneous speaking, members of the Steinbrenner FFA Chapter learned and practiced skills that will prepare them for their future.
Senior Stephanie Shimer and junior Jessica Velte competed in two different public speaking events: prepared public speaking and extemporaneous speaking. Prepared public speaking requires participants to write a speech based on a topic before the event, while extemporaneous speaking requires participants to write a speech based on a topic in about 30 minutes. Participants then answer questions related to their topic that require critical thinking and knowledge on the topic as well as knowledge about topics such as politics, current agricultural events and agricultural policies.
“I received a topic about crop monitoring and my questions were about drones, about the citrus industry, and about how we can prevent things happening in our industry. It was essentially how this technology correlates to modern day agriculture,” said Shimer.
Velte placed third in prepared public speaking, and Shimer placed third in extemporaneous speaking. Though neither of the students will be progressing on to state competitions, Shimer is happy with her achievement as this is her last time participating in this competition since she is a senior.
“I did better than the subdistricts, which is kind of the preliminaries to get to districts. I know it was pretty tight and the competition was pretty tight and there was probably just a couple points difference, but it was definitely an amazing experience all around.” said Shimer.
Maeve Campbell // Graphics Dept.
