Family Farm Friday #68: Thank You FFA Speeches!

"A speech is like a woman's skirt: it needs to be long enough to cover the subject matter but short enough to hold the audience's attention."~Author Unknown

I realized that I talk alot on this blog about the benefits of FFA and 4-H in the form of showing and judging. Recently, I had an experience that made me thankful for another part of 4-H and FFA that I sometimes overlook....public speaking.

I was in court and a judge stopped me during my argument and said, "I wish you could give lessons to some of the other lawyers in my courtroom about how to speak up and ennunciate." I wasn't sure if he was meaning this as a compliment or if he was telling me to tone it down (no lie, I have had a judge literally turn down my microphone before....), but the judge assured me that he meant it as a compliment. All I could think was, "Thank you FFA speeches!"

Both Little Brother and I started giving speeches as soon as we turned 9 years old in 4-H. That means that for about 9 years, we were giving at least one (if not two or three) speeches in contests every year. We would memorize our speeches--no notecards for us!--and practice them COUNTLESS times to my parents. We had a fireplace in the trailerhouse that I grew up in, that we would always stand in front of for speech practice. I guarantee you if walls could talk, that fireplace could rock a speech contest.
(Sidenote: Apparently while I was learning to speak in public, I was NOT learning about fashion....seriously???)

Mr. Franklin didn't really like speeches. He'd listen to us a handful of times before a contest and always come up with some off-the-wall question to make us feel stupid, and he'd get choked up if results were good and smile big in pictures. But mostly, he left this one up to our parents, both of whom were obsessed with speech contests. My mom was the queen of proofreading and bibliographies. You couldn't touch her. And my dad was in charge of presentation. You know--voice inflection, hand movements, you name it.
Our hard work paid off. When we were kids, Little Brother and I won the District public speaking contest like 8 years in a row or something crazy. When we got older, we were both State Champions in public speaking. He won the FFA prepared contest his senior year, and I won the 4-H extemporaneous contest my senior year. We're a family of talkers.

We talked about everything you can think of. My winning extemp speech was about drinking and driving. Little Brother's winning speech was about the beef check-off program. I was second at State FFA my junior year (to ND Friend) with a speech about marketing our products. You've read my first speech here, and Little Brother's was something having to do with the phrase, "Make my day" by Clint Eastwood. In the middle there were speeches about game plans and cattle breeds and cowboy hats and water conservation...you can pretty much name it and we talked about it.

What did we learn from this? I'd say confidence and a lack of fear mostly. I have read about people who have a horrible fear of public speaking. I feel fortunate to have had such a great experience in 4-H and FFA growing up that I have honestly never had that experience. Sure, I get a little nervous before a speech, but nothing like the fear that some people describe.

Chalk another one up to 4-H and FFA! (Ironically, tomorrow I'll be judging the Junior High State FFA Speech Contest....my how the tables have turned!)