State FFA Week - Don't Tell Me I Can't

"The turning point, I think, was when I really realized that you can do it yourself. That you have to believe in you because sometimes that's the only person that does believe in your success but you." ~ Tim Blixseth

It's State FFA Judging week in Las Cruces, so I figured a blog on something judging related was appropriate. I've always been a person who hated being told she couldn't do something. If there was any sure-fire way to motivate me, it was to tell me I couldn't do it.

For those of you who were not in FFA, the way judging works is that once your team has won state and judged at Nationals, those team members are not allowed to judge that contest anymore. So, usually you just find another contest and give that a try. My freshman year we won livestock, which was "our contest" so to speak and went to Nationals. So, sophmore year we won Dairy and went to Nationals. Junior year rolled around. Judging season started and we were signing up for which contests we would be competing in. Mr. Franklin puts our names on the board for Poultry. He had lost his mind.

Now, you have to understand, we were livestock kids. I had never touched a chicken in my life. Kyle didn't even EAT chicken. And Mr. Franklin thought we would judge, and not just judge, but win the Poultry contest? We suggested other contests, I tried to pull the "I'm allergic to feathers" line, Kyle said he'd never even seen raw chicken. We tried to explain this to him, but anyone who knew Mr. Franklin realizes this was akin to talking to a fence post. He calmly informed us not only were we going to be judging Poultry, we'd be winning poultry. So, we started learning about chicken parts, pigmentation loss, and candeling eggs.

Our first invitational contest rolled around and we were in Clovis. The Poultry contest was set up in one of the barns, so off we went, clipboards in hand, eyes ready for our first Poultry experience. As we were entering the barn, a whole group of ag teachers from other schools were laughing at us. It seemed like they all had comments about the livestock kids judging poutry and how funny we looked and then one of them made a crack about our winning streak being over and how his team had been training for years to win Poultry. He had implied that we couldn't do it--bad mistake.

Kyle and I both saw red, and it was on. I remember getting off that bus that night and going to the freezer to unthaw chicken parts to practice. The next week at night after we had been judging at district all day, it was the same thing. All along we could do it, and now we knew we were going to. To this day I can look at most any cut of chicken and blurt out what it is in about .25 seconds. I could analyze a problem with a fried chicken patty like no one's business--they really should have hired me at McDonalds. I guess if the lawyer thing doesn't work out...
Life is full of people telling you that you can't do something. You have two choices--you can listen to them, or you can prove them wrong. Most of the time, people don't know what you are made of. They underestimate your abilities and try to get you to sell yourself short. Don't listen. Prove them wrong. Put you head down and go to work. You know what you're capable of. Show everyone else.

Oh, and in case you were wondering how the story ended? We ended up holding a big red State Championship banner in Gerald Thomas hall. We went on to be holding big scholarship checks at the National FFA Convention a few months later.

I don't think I ever thanked that ag teacher for his assistance with achieving these goals.....that was unthoughtful of me.