PC FFA co-hosts Nebraska Hall of States booth at National Convention

The Perkins County FFA chapter attended the National Convention held in Indianapolis last week, where they hosted the Nebraska Hall of States booth along with the Humboldt Table Rock Steinauer (HTRS) chapter, a first in Nebraska FFA history.

The chapter’s eight officers—Ella Uehling, Summer Postlewait, Eli Busick, Kylie Tucker, Hallie Fisher, Kayton Brueggeman, Gavin Smith and Storm Peterson—along with adult sponsors Doug Babbitt, Lisa Babbitt and Rachel Tucker departed on the near thousand mile trip Monday, Oct. 25.

“We were very fortunate to have Mrs. Rachel Tucker and Mrs. Lisa Babbitt be our drivers,” Doug Babbitt said. “That was quite helpful for us to get to where we needed to go safely.”

While en route, Babbitt said the kids were watching and listening to the volleyball sub-district games to support the team and school even from a distance.

They spent their first evening in Des Moines, Iowa, and left in the early morning Tuesday to get to Indianapolis in time to set up for the National Convention Expo.

Four of the team’s officers had never been to a state competition due to COVID, much less the National convention which none of the eight officers had been able to attend before, as 2019’s convention was cancelled and last year’s was virtual.

This was also the first time Perkins County has hosted the Nebraska booth in the Hall of States. In fact, Babbitt said the last time they had a student on stage at the National Convention was in 2006.

Perkin’s County’s FFA chapter worked alongside the HTRS chapter to prepare Nebraska’s Hall of States booth for this year’s convention, a responsibility that typically goes to a single qualifying chapter.

However, this year Babbitt said they “qualified by luck.”

He had called the state office to inquire if anyone had qualified for the Hall of States competition at Nationals. At the time, there was no school that had qualified, so Babbit asked if Perkins County could take over the responsibility this year.

About two weeks later, however, he received a call from the state office saying they had just received news that during the virtual session HTRS qualified for the competition with a virtual booth.

Babbitt and Trent Platt of HTRS worked together to combine their skills for one booth. Perkins County’s students handled the technology portion of the project while the students from HTRS created the physical booth.

Nebraska’s booth this year was the Nebraska Top 10 Saloon, which was decorated as an old saloon and provided education about Nebraska’s 10 leading commodities and what they can produce. There was also a TV set up at the booth which played a video featuring the different FFA districts and schools in the state.

Patrons at the booth were handed a “wanted poster” featuring information about one of the commodities. They would then go up to the saloon’s bar where an FFA student would ask a question about their product.

Fortunately, Babbitt said the posters were basically a cheat sheet for those participating.

If the question was answered correctly, the patron would receive a bag of popcorn, of which the booth had 3,000 to give away.

Wednesday, Oct. 27, HTRS manned the booth while Perkins County’s students attended the opening session of the convention featuring keynote speaker Courtenay DeHoff, “Fancy Lady Cowgirl,” who spoke about standing up for oneself and standing out.

Babbitt said she was very moving, and the kids and crowd in general reacted really well to her presentation.

Thursday, Perkins County and HTRS worked together to run the booth, with two students from each chapter working a two hour shift. Babbitt noted there were around 51,000 members present at the convention, even with COVID.

According to Babbitt, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday “there was never not a line at the bar.” The kids, he added, did a “fabulous job,” and they worked really well with the HTRS students.

The only thing Babbitt found disappointing was that they didn’t win the competition. First place went to Kentucky’s booth, and Perkins County has yet to find out what place they received.

However, he thinks the experience was beneficial to the students regardless. With what they learned and who they got to meet, Babbitt said the team left with skills they would not have acquired had they not had that experience.

“I’m so proud of them,” he added. “They were rock stars all the way through it. Everything they did from developing the video, to working in the booth, to talking to people, to how much fun they seemed to have doing it. The way they acted and treated people was very professional. They did a fabulous job, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better from them.”

After the success running the booth with two FFA chapters, Babbitt said there is now an effort to work toward a situation where the first and second place qualifiers would work together to create a booth at the convention, rather than just the first place qualifier as it has been done in the past.