Cultivating Tomorrow’s Leaders

Special to Guthrie News Page
By: Joci Fogle, Mulhall-Orlando FFA Reporter

On the morning of September 24th, the Mulhall-Orlando FFA Officer team loaded up on a bus to head to Enid for the Northwest Area COLT Conference. COLT stands for Chapter Officer Leadership Training. Officers Kaylee Blagden, Daegan Pool, Jace Taylor, Garrett Perrin, Joci Fogle, and Landon Chartier spent the day working as a team and developing leadership qualities.

Reporter Joci Fogle was selected to participate in the Opening and Closing ceremonies during the conference. Fogle said, “It was nerve-racking at first because I have never done anything like this before but once I began, I realized that it wasn’t as bad as I had originally thought.” “Getting to interact and meet other officers from the area was a lot of fun,” Pool expressed. The Mulhall-Orlando FFA Officers and 366 other officers from schools in the “North Best” area as State Northwest Area Vice President Casyn Larman called it, got to listen to Josiah Cruickshank, former National FFA Western Region Vice President. “Cruikshank gave an inspiring speech,” said Pool.

Officers were then broken up into four groups to work on team-building activities. MulhallOrlando was a part of the group led by Anna Jo Helling, Northeast Area Vice President, and Caleb Ames, Southwest Area Vice President. One activity the officers took part in was building a Tetro Tower. This activity involved the officers building a tower made of straws and masking tape. The goal was to build the tallest tower that looked like the team’s original design, which the State Officers approved. Even though Mulhall-Orlando’s tower was not very tall nor did it look like their original design, Chapter President Kaylee Blagden said, “I enjoyed the experience and had lots of fun trying to make the tower stand up.” Once the conference was over the Mulhall-Orlando FFA Officer Team loaded back up on the bus to get food before the drive back home.