BOZEMAN — The Montana FFA Ag Expo is underway this week on the Montana State University campus, bringing together students from across the state to participate in agriculture competitions and prepare for their careers.
For FFA State Officers Savanna Freitas and Kyona Yeager, being part of the Montana FFA Association played a major role in their lives.
“FFA for me helped me find my place, and it helped me grow as a leader and as a person,” Savanna said. “Ag Expo for me this year is a full-circle moment because I realized what a state officer was and realized I wanted to be one four years ago this very week."
Go inside the Montana FFA Ag Expo at MSU - See students compete and learn leadership skills that will shape Montana's agricultural future:
The annual Ag Expo offers hands-on career and leadership workshops designed for students wanting to pursue a career in agriculture.
Kyona led a workshop on networking and communication. “I got to teach students how to network with people they could potentially work for or just get to know,” she said.
Savanna’s workshop focused on the foundations of event planning. “I helped teach five very basic pillars of event planning,” she explained.
Both officers come from agricultural backgrounds. Savanna is a freshman at MSU studying animal science, while Kyona hopes to pursue a career in cattle production. When asked what they value most about the agriculture industry, Kyona said:
“If you ask anybody in agriculture for a ride or for some help, you’re most likely going to get it because we’re just a bunch of caring people that want to make sure we can take care of people as much as possible."
Curt Robbins, FFA’s Director of Operations, has been involved with FFA for 45 years, beginning as a high school student in the program.
"Agriculture is a huge staple in Montana. It’s important that we have these students being part of that and carrying that forward,” Robbins said.
“When I started, we only had about 1,200 members in the state, and now we’ve got close to 7,000.”
Nationwide, FFA has more than 1 million members.
Until Saturday, MSU and the Gallatin County Fairgrounds will host more than 30 competitive events along with a wide variety of career workshops, like the sessions led by Savanna and Kyona.
“Try to go to as many opportunities as possible. Now is a great opportunity to learn some developmental leadership skills,” said Savanna.
