Erin Wollett named 2012-13 FFA State Treasurer

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Some­times young folks set high goals and not only achieve those goals, but do so well in try­ing that they go beyond their orig­i­nal expec­ta­tions. That’s what hap­pened to Porter Town­ship res­i­dent and Cen­ter­burg High School grad­u­ate Erin Wollett.

Wol­lett, a mem­ber of Cen­ter­burg High School FFA who has also been active in Con­dit Live­stock 4-H Club, grad­u­ated from Cen­ter­burg High School last year and just fin­ished her fresh­man year at Wilm­ing­ton Col­lege where she’s study­ing agri­cul­tural edu­ca­tion and ani­mal science.

It was dur­ing her fresh­man year in high school that Wol­lett set a goal: she wanted to work towards becom­ing a state FFA officer.

Ohio FFA offi­cers con­sists of the six con­sti­tu­tional state FFA offi­cers: State Pres­i­dent, Vice Pres­i­dent, Sec­re­tary, Trea­surer, Reporter, Sen­tinel; and 10 non-constitutional dis­trict pres­i­dents rep­re­sent­ing each of Ohio’s 10 FFA districts.

The odds are slim of get­ting a state FFA offi­cer nom­i­na­tion, let alone being selected to fill one of the 16 posi­tions. There are 309 FFA chap­ters in Ohio’s 10 dis­tricts, with over 23,000 active members.

“I’ve always been involved in FFA,” Wol­lett said. “In Jan­u­ary they opened up the appli­ca­tions for state and dis­trict offi­cers, so I turned in an appli­ca­tion for Dis­trict 7 and my advisor’s recommendation.”

After sub­mit­ting her appli­ca­tion, Wol­lett had to wait until an April 14 appli­cants inter­view ses­sion at The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity to com­plete the next step in the appli­ca­tion process that included a writ­ten exam, a gen­eral inter­view process, a pre­sen­ta­tion fol­lowed by ques­tions and answers, and extem­po­ra­ne­ous speaking.

“If we scored well then we were placed on the bal­lot of the 10 Ohio dis­tricts,” Wol­lett said. “I found out on the Tues­day before the (May 3–4) State FFA Con­ven­tion I was on the bal­lot for Dis­trict 7 President.”

As the con­ven­tion began, Wol­lett knew she was already nom­i­nated for Dis­trict 7 Pres­i­dent, and if selected that would be a goal achieved – a non-constitutional state offi­cer. But while at the con­ven­tion she found out she was also on the bal­lot for State Trea­surer, a con­sti­tu­tional office.

“We found out we had two Dis­trict 7 nom­i­nees for FFA State Trea­surer,” Wol­lett said. “One of us would become State Trea­surer and the other would become Dis­trict 7 Pres­i­dent. On the first day of the con­ven­tion we had five min­utes to pre­pare another extem­po­ra­ne­ous speech, then we went onstage for a two-minute speech in front of the delegates.”

The offi­cial del­e­gates at the State FFA Con­ven­tion con­sist of two mem­bers of each of the 309 FFA chap­ters in the state of Ohio. The 618 del­e­gates voted and, near the end of a retire­ment speech at the close of the sec­ond day of the con­ven­tion, 2011-12 State FFA Pres­i­dent Jes­sica Shana­han announced the 2012–13 Ohio FFA Offi­cer Team; and Erin Wol­lett learned that she was selected to serve as 2012–13 Ohio FFA Treasurer.

The con­ven­tion closed with an instal­la­tion cer­e­mony for the new offi­cers who will serve from July 1 of this year until July 1, 2013. The 2012–13 FFA state offi­cers have already held one team meet­ing, and they will meet once each month dur­ing their terms in office.

“It hasn’t really set in yet,” Wol­lett said dur­ing an inter­view last week. “I decided a long time ago that I wanted to become a state offi­cer, and now that it’s here it’s sur­real. There’s no words to describe it, but it’s a neat experience.”

Being a State FFA Offi­cer is not just an hon­orary posi­tion. In addi­tion to their monthly team meet­ings, state offi­cers are respon­si­ble for a host of chap­ter vis­its in the fall and spring, there will be work­shops to attend, and over the sum­mer months state offi­cers serve as coun­selors at the FFA Sum­mer Camp’s five sessions.

“There will be a lot of oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges being state trea­surer,” Wol­lett said. “I know I’ll be dri­ving a lot of miles; but I also know that I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.”

Erin Wol­lett said she intends to stay involved with FFA, and hopes to become an FFA advi­sor and Agri­cul­tural Sci­ence instruc­tor. She is the daugh­ter of Porter Town­ship res­i­dents Amy and Larry Wollett.

FFA is a national orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to prepar­ing its mem­bers for lead­er­ship and careers in the sci­ence, busi­ness and tech­nol­ogy of agri­cul­ture. Local, state and national activ­i­ties and award pro­grams pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties to apply knowl­edge and skills acquired through agri­cul­ture education.

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion about FFA in Ohio go to < ohioffa.org >.

Posted by Gary Henery on May 30 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.