{"id":30203,"date":"2016-10-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-student-elected-national-ffas-eastern-region-vice-president\/"},"modified":"2022-05-10T08:32:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T14:32:23","slug":"tarleton-student-elected-national-ffas-eastern-region-vice-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/tarleton-student-elected-national-ffas-eastern-region-vice-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarleton student elected National FFA’s Eastern Region vice president"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"National<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National FFA Eastern Region Vice President<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, October 26, 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHENVILLE, Texas\u2014Ashley Willits, a Tarleton State University agricultural education major from Copenhagen, N.Y., was elected Eastern Region vice president for the National FFA Organization. She will serve on the 2016-17 national FFA officer team along with students from Delaware, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and South Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willits is currently a junior at Tarleton and was elected by delegates at the 89th<\/sup> annual National FFA Convention & Expo on Saturday, Oct. 22, in Indianapolis. Her 1-year term as Eastern Region vice president expires next October during the next national convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willits, along with the five other candidates recently elected to FFA officer team, all attended the fifth annual National FFA Officer Preparatory Academy held this past September on Tarleton\u2019s Stephenville campus. The academy is hosted by Tarleton\u2019s College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences and led by Drs. David Fraizer, Rudy Tarpley and Ted Ford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are excited to have a Tarleton State student on the 2016-2017 national FFA officer team,\u201d said Tarleton\u2019s Assistant Professor of Agricultural & Consumer Sciences Dr. David Frazier. \u201cAshley is going to make a fantastic national FFA officer and will make Tarleton proud as she travels around the country representing more than 600,000 FFA members in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe also are excited that all six of the newly elected officers actually attended our national officer workshop a few weeks ago,\u201d he added. \u201cThis tells me that, in some small way, Tarleton and our students who helped with the workshop, have played an instrumental role in helping these students as they prepared to run for this elite office.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of 34 candidates representing their respective home state\u2019s FFA Association attended the three-day academy at Tarleton. Among the state FFA associations represented at the 2016 academy were: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a dream for so many students across the country; however, only six students are chosen each year,\u201d Frazier said of the national officer team. \u201cWhat an honor to have one of these students call Tarleton home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National FFA officers each typically travel more than 100,000 national and international miles to interact with agribusiness and industry leaders, thousands of FFA members and ag education teachers, corporate sponsors, government and education officials, state FFA leaders, the general public, and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willits will travel throughout the Unites States over the course of the next year, as well as to Japan, representing FFA members striving to develop premier leadership, personal growth and career success through the context of agricultural education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Willits and the national officers will lead personal growth and leadership training conferences for FFA members throughout the country and will assist with developing policies that will guide the future of FFA and promote agricultural literacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joining Willits on the 2016-17 National FFA Officer team are: President – David Townsend, University of Delaware; Secretary \u2013 Victoria Harris, University of Florida; Southern Region Vice President \u2013 DeShawn Blanding, North Carolina A&T State University; Western Region Vice President \u2013 Trey Elizondo, Texas A&M University; Central Region Vice President \u2013 Valerie Earley, University of Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Willits is the third Tarleton student to be elected to a position on the national FFA officer team. Past national officers include Cody Nash in 1997-98 and Casey Hogan in 2003-04. Both served as Western Region vice president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tarleton, a member of The Texas A&M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven educational experience marked by academic innovation and exemplary service, and dedicated to transforming students into tomorrow\u2019s professional leaders. With campuses in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian and online, Tarleton engages with its communities to provide real-world learning experiences and to address societal needs while maintaining its core values of integrity, leadership, tradition, civility, excellence and service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contact: Kurt Mogonye
254-968-9460
mogonye@tarleton.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ashley Willits, a Tarleton State University agricultural education major from Copenhagen, N.Y., was elected Eastern Region vice president for the National FFA Organization. She will serve on the 2016-17 national FFA officer team along with students from Delaware, Florida, Minnesota, Texas and South Carolina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423],"tags":[436],"class_list":["post-30203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics-research","tag-college-of-agriculture-natural-resources"],"acf":{"image":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-2036-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Academics & Research<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Academics & Research<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["College of Agriculture & Natural Resources<\/a>"],"unlinked":["College of Agriculture & Natural Resources<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 9 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on October 26, 2016","modified":"Updated on May 10, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on October 26, 2016 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on May 10, 2022 8:32 am"},"featured_img_caption":"Group of six smiling people in FFA jackets holding a large gavel.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}