When I Went to the Deep South

     Today I am writing to y’all while being my mother’s shotgun rider following a long train of school buses through Rattle Snake Pass going to Moscow from Wallowa Lake, Oregon. By doing so I am hoping that I will be able to type this out without getting car sick. Hopefully my “methodical” picking and eating of only one color at a time of M&Ms will help keep my nauseous tendencies to a minimum.

     On that note, we are going to do a little Toss-back Tuesday.

      A year ago today, I was visiting the great state of Mississippi as they kicked off their State Conference. That is definitely an experience that I will never forget.

     How did I get to go to Mississippi you may be asking. Well one, FFA takes you places, duh! And two, I met the two coolest people ever at the Utah State Leadership Conference.  Hayden and Drew are seriously the two coolest and most genuine people that you will meet. And from the moment we shook hands and introduced ourselves that first day at convention and jammed in my car as I drove them around Logan, I knew that we were going to be close. And with that came an invitation to go to their state and see how the South does things.  

     Funny enough, I wasn’t the only North-Westerner going. And it wasn’t until I had landed and been in the state for a few hours that they told me that Washington’s Micheal Heitstuman was also attending the convention. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to have to hang out and do pre-session with than him.

• All in all I learned a handful of things:
• Alligator is actually pretty good. I would totally eat it again.
• You haven’t ate fried chicken till you eat it in the deep South.
•  There is such things as getting sick of fried chicken.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE fried chicken and eat it all the time and a lot of it, but I swear that is the only thing they like to eat. I am not kidding you when I say that for one day’s meals it was chicken and a biscuit for breakfast, fried chicken sandwich for lunch, and fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy for dinner.
•    Mississippi has a Junior Association. This is for middle school members and they are able to participate during those years in Junior Association CDE’s and they even have their own Junior State Officers and a day of just their sessions during the week. It was different for me to see such young of people wearing the FFA jacket, but cool for me to see how passionate these young people are and continue to be as they go through “Senior” FFA.
•   Not all people who live in Dixie has a thick southern accent. The more Northern chapters has mild accents, whereas the more South you get the thicker and more slurred the speech gets. I also heard my accent get thicker and thicker every day I was there. Although I have lived in Idaho my entire life, I apparently have a slight southern drawl. Even all the FFA members in Mississippi asked me if I was sure I wasn’t from Texas or something.

     But my one of my all-time favorite stories from the South is from their dance. Now if you don’t know either me or my mother, you cannot possibly imagine our love for dancing. Furthermore, you cannot fathom our ability to “drop it low.” Needless to say we are the whitest black girls you will ever meet. And there is not a song that I love more to drop it to than the “Wobble”.  When that song came over the loud speakers, I put my hands in the air and started to drop it like its hot. After completing that song and continuing on into the next one, I had a girl come up to me, grab both my arms in her hands, stare me square in the face, and say, “Honey, I heard you were a hooker. Is that true?” People, I ASSURE you that I am NOT a hooker. For the rest of the trip that became the joke.         Needless to say, I think I left my mark on Mississippi.

     While I was there, I was able to meet with one of the main officials of the Veterinary Program. He was able to take me on a private tour of the facilities and sit down with me and talk with me about my future. I can honestly say that if I hadn’t have met him and gone on that tour, I wouldn’t have known what opportunities that Mississippi State University could hold for me. I can most definitely say that going back to Mississippi for Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine school wouldn’t have even been an option that I would have known to consider.

     Honestly I cannot wait to go back.

     And a quick trip down memory lane... 

Hayden and me after Utah State Convention. 

My alligator Po-Boy (what this sandwich is referred to). Delicious. 

This was a reflections that they did before session one time. It was way cool that they painted the black in the top picture and then on the flip side was the Ignite.

Pre-session fun. 

More pre-session fun. Interestingly enough, the girls were the best at shaving. Who knew?!

While sitting behind the backstage curtain watching a session, Mr. Micheal leaned over and placed his head on my shoulder and was looking at his phone. Soon enough he was sound asleep. It was honestly a great thing that he was there with me. It totally made my trip great. 

     It is an experience like this that I can only attribute to my involvement in FFA. That is what I love about FFA. As a State Officer, we always tell our members that being involved can take them places like Washington D.C. and Indianapolis, but at the time I was telling them that, I didn’t imagine that FFA would take me to Starkville, Mississippi.

     I am super excited to be back in Moscow and see all of my peeps’ shining faces. It has been a great and very rainy trip thus far, and I can’t wait for the rest of the week. It is slightly weird because I am a chaperone and not a student and I am now old enough that I don’t know all of these kids anymore, but I am, nonetheless, loving every minute of it.  Like I said in my post last week, I do love to take selfies and want to meet more of my readers in person. Come on up and say hello and ask for a picture and I will be so tickled!

     After several stops, the bus driver skillfully missing a rouge deer in the road, and my pausing to let my car sickness subside, we are finally in Moscow! Let the fun continue on and on!

Peace, Love, and FFA!

McKenzie 

Vallivue FFA Chapter