Growing Our Future
Say "Yes!"
In this week's episode of the "Growing Our Future" podcast, host Aaron Alejandro is joined by the esteemed CEO of the National FFA, Scott Stump. Together, they embark on a captivating journey through Scott's life and career, exploring the transformative power of FFA, the importance of saying "yes," and the pivotal role agriculture education plays in shaping the future.
Aaron delves into Scott's unique journey and career path, highlighting his background in agriculture education and biochemical engineering. Scott shares his early experiences in the FFA, including serving as a state officer, which led him to discover his passion for empowering individuals and building systems to nurture their growth.
Story Notes:
- Gratitude and Inspiration
- Scott Stump's Journey
- The Value of FFA
- Empowering Future Leaders
- The Power of "Yes"
Learn More at:
In this week's episode of the "Growing Our Future" podcast, host Aaron Alejandro is joined by the esteemed CEO of the National FFA, Scott Stump. Together, they embark on a captivating journey through Scott's life and career, exploring the transformative power of FFA, the importance of saying "yes," and the pivotal role agriculture education plays in shaping the future.
Aaron delves into Scott's unique journey and career path, highlighting his background in agriculture education and biochemical engineering. Scott shares his early experiences in the FFA, including serving as a state officer, which led him to discover his passion for empowering individuals and building systems to nurture their growth.
Story Notes:
- Gratitude and Inspiration
- Scott Stump's Journey
- The Value of FFA
- Empowering Future Leaders
- The Power of "Yes"
Learn More at:
Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast. In this show, the Texas FFA Foundation will take on a journey of exploration into agricultural science, education, leadership development and insights from subject matter experts and sponsors who provide the fuel to make dreams come true. Here is your host, Erin Alejandro.
Speaker 2:Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening or whenever you may be tuning in to the Growing Our Future podcast, we're glad you're with us and you know today is no exception. We have got the most incredible guests that we could ever search out and find Subject Matter experts who are willing to come on, share their time, talent, expertise and insights. Today we've got one of those folks. Matter of fact, we've got the top of the food chain of the FFA organization and I am telling you I am excited about today. I'm honored to have him here. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the CEO, the chief executive officer of the National FFA, Scott Stump. Scott, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 3:Oh, erin, thank you for allowing me to spend some time with you and, hopefully, sir, some good messages. Most importantly, I just appreciate you as a colleague and friend, someone who I know is equally as passionate about developing the potential of young people and expanding the positive influence of FFA and agriculture education across this country. So thank you for what you do and allowing me to be here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Okay, we're going to stop right there. That's all we need to say. It's all about passion and want to. And guess what? We're going to dive deeper into passion and want to because we want everybody, everybody to have the same opportunities and successes that we've been blessed to have through this great program. So we're going to talk about that a little bit. Okay, to start off, every guest gets the same question, so you get the same question everybody else gets, and that is this Scott Stump, what are you grateful for today?
Speaker 3:You know, as I look out the window today, grateful for Dogwoods and Redwoods that here in the spring absolutely remind us, yeah, the cycle of life and that the seasons change, but through all of those seasons there is hope and promise and there's a blossoming that comes out. And so, when I say what I'm most grateful for today, I get to wake up every day and help students blossom, help them come out of their shells and, yeah, and doing that through the thousands of teachers that are so dedicated to do that, and state leaders across this nation, like you in the state of Texas, it's great work and it just makes me so grateful that we have a system that's changing lives.
Speaker 2:Well, I couldn't agree with you more. I'm going to tell one really quick little story here on my board chairman, mitchell Dell, who I believe you've had the pleasure of meeting. Yes, sir, mitchell Dell is one of the largest Ford dealers in the state of Texas. They had just built and opened a brand new Ford dealership, brand new facility, mccree Ford in Dickinson, texas. They had only been open less than 90 days when the flood hit Dickinson and some of the images national images of their dealership was the image of the cars underwater of their dealership.
Speaker 2:And I remember I called Mitchell on a Saturday morning and he was pretty distraught, as you might suspect. But what you just said is almost similar to what he conveyed to me. He said, aaron, I'm sitting on the back porch and I'm looking into pasture and I see a new calf on a cow. And he said it was just kind of a reminder that everything's going to be okay, absolutely. And sometimes we just need to pause, we need to take that deep breath.
Speaker 2:You know, many times on this show we've talked about this turn the news down, turn the social media down, because if you're not careful it can get really negative. And remember, we can only grow what we plant. Thus the whole reason for this show. You know, abraham Lincoln said that the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. And I tell people all the time if agriculture has taught me anything, it's taught me. If you want to know what the future is, grow it.
Speaker 2:We need those reminders from leaders like Scott that say look outside, look out your window, look around at all that we do have to be grateful for the opportunities, the liberties, the freedoms, the chance to help somebody else to choose the pathway that we want to go. And so I think, starting out with that attitude of gratitude I don't know about you, but I find it energizing yes, I like to be around people that are grateful. People that are grateful tend to be hopeful and to me it kind of motivates me to want to do better, absolutely. Thank you for looking out your window.
Speaker 3:There you go. That was good.
Speaker 2:All right. So here we go, the chief executive officer, the leader of probably one of the most iconic leadership organizations, youth organizations, not only in the country but probably in the world. The impact of our organization and through alumni, it's got to be extraordinary. What a role you have. Okay, what a role you have, but here's what I'm willing to bet. You can correct me if I'm wrong. Something tells me you just didn't fall into that seat.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, did not fall into that seat.
Speaker 2:All right. So let's do that, let's talk about that. Scott, take us through your kind of life journey and how you ended up in that seat as CEO of the National FFA.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've been so blessed, aaron. You know my father was an agriculture educator so I started off early. For those listening that might have also been involved in 4-H. My mom was my 4-H club reader, so we had both green and blue and gold, which blue and gold does make green if you have the two colors together. We always joke about our family, but Northeastern Indiana and it was going to be a went off to Purdue in biochemical agricultural education. Because the rest of my family brothers and sisters, most are still involved in day-to-day classrooms in Northern Indiana as teachers, I said no, I'm going to be different, I'm going to get away from education. So I went in biochemical engineering, thoroughly loved the major. I love science. I'm kind of a geek that way.
Speaker 3:But then after my first year at Purdue it took a year off as a state FFA officer and I will tell you as we think about growing the future. One of the most important pieces is getting our FFA members out to experience as many things as possible, whether that is coming to the National Convention, to the Expo or at the State Convention. I know you have a tremendous Expo that exposes them to the wonderful careers that are available in agriculture and the opportunities they might not have thought of, because it's only through that exposure that they're really going to find their purpose and what they've been created for. And that's what I found during my state officer year. I spent time in classrooms and it became very clear to me my purpose wasn't being in the lab, my purpose was building people and or building systems to build people, and that kind of became the mantra. The rest of my 30-year career, which led to the classroom I did teach, went to work for National FFA, was blessed to go to Alexandria, virginia, where the officers were at, moved with the Center of Indianapolis. And then again my wife and my journey took us to Colorado to be in state leadership of the FFA and ag education program there and ultimately in charge of all of current technical education in the state of Colorado as far as the funding streams and really increasing the quality and making sure that we were delivering on that promise to students to set them up to be on a pipeline to the what's next for them in life.
Speaker 3:And so after about 14 years at the community college system, I found an opportunity with two former National FFA officers that kind of bookended my first run at National FFA to work, actually with a private company called Ibeac that provides innovative learning solutions on the front line. Would that be a corporate standpoint, with Corteva or John Deere or World Bank, all the way to National FFA and SkillsUSA, and also doing student organization resources? How do you disseminate large learning across a disaggregated environment? And so? But in the midst of that, I got an email from the White House that said, hey, would you come? Would you be interested in coming to work for the, the administration? Then, yes, I got to be the assistant secretary for the Office of Career, technical and Adult Education and, you know, on October 1st, to hit a button that gives out $1.3 billion to do good across the nation is both an honor and a huge responsibility, and so I feel very blessed to have spent two and a half years at the Trump administration really leaning into how we do a better job across this nation of enhancing skills.
Speaker 3:And I know, aaron, you've probably seen this, but during our decades in high school and those immediately following, significant push for, yes, all academics to move on to four-year universities. But I personally believe in our economy today we're missing. We've got a skills gap like we've never seen in this country before, and it's on us, as leaders said, to fill that. And so, while I didn't know that leaving and I tell this to a lot of student groups that I talked to while I didn't know that leaving National FFA, but because I really had planned to stay that first time around and hopefully ultimately make it to this point but what I didn't know was that I needed to go away and get other experiences to truly be ready to step into this role. So, constantly be looking for ways to grow yourself, whether that means staying where you are or potentially moving to a new situation, but constantly be growing.
Speaker 2:Well, you said a lot right there, by the way, and I think one of the things that I think that I want to take, you know, one of the things I like about interviewing folks is I love to listen to their stories and then try to find things that we can extract out of that, and I think one of the things that I found interesting about what you just said is number one you're willing to take some risk. Absolutely, you stepped out of your comfort zone, which you mentioned several times, in that journey to where you're at today. You're willing to take some risk. The other thing is is that I caught that you paid attention along the way, because you learned things from the different people that you interacted with. You learned things from the different experiences that you had.
Speaker 2:So, when I'm, when I think about students and you're listening to podcasts, or you're listening to interviews, or you're listening in a classroom, if I'm, if you'll listen not only with your ears but with your eyes, you will see that all of us have these incredible opportunities, but we have to pay attention for the chance to learn something, for the chance to be empowered by something, the chance to be encouraged by something, and if you listen to Scott's story, I find it fascinating. Ag education with the hope of being a bioengineer, you know, a science geek, as you said but then all of a sudden, maybe, a career shift happened and all of a sudden a new passion was ignited that now not only can I do something, maybe, with science, but I can do that by empowering other people to be really good at what their passion is. Absolutely that's what I find fascinating when we start unpacking people's journeys.
Speaker 3:You know I can't help but bring it back to the FFA model too, that second part of it that I'm doing to learn. You can spend a lot of time doing things, but the model calls on us to, as you're doing, constantly be thinking and learning as you do it, and that's not just for our FFA members, that's for people like me that are still doing the learn. I'm a work in progress.
Speaker 2:I learn all the time. I learned from you. I learned from. I mean, I love learning this. You know you said something, I don't know I'm gonna. I'm gonna share a couple things with you and let you kind of take off on all these, but watch this, because you know you talked about the workforce while ago. I will tell you that in our world, of all the sponsors that I deal with and all the professionals on my board and others that I deal with, the number one issue and there's not even a close second the number one issue is workforce. We need workforce. Now I can't speak for all states, but I'm going to break it down in Texas. The chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission in Texas is a former Texas FFA member. Right now you go, brian, and he gives a statistic that really sheds light on this. In the state of Texas, as big as we are only seven, only 30 percent of Texans have a college degree. Let that sink in. Only 30 percent. That means that 70 percent are in a workforce. They're somewhere out there go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, I was going to say in that that 30 percent that he's talking about includes not just four year degrees but one year and two year certificate and associate degree programs and so all along that continuum we know 70 percent that could advance in their work there you go, which leads us to where I'm going next.
Speaker 2:Here we go. So in the state of Texas. Do you want to take a guess? Get how many high schools do you think we have in the state of Texas?
Speaker 3:oh, I had no idea. I know that you have about 1025 FFA chapters that I was looking at the other day but I don't know how many schools so probably, in terms of high schools, probably a little over 3000 high schools in the state.
Speaker 2:Wow, now think about that. So every one of them have a senior class. Yep, so everyone of them are going to graduate, kids that are going to get out and they're going to be looking for a job, a Scholarship or an opportunity. So the question that I always ask the young people is what separates you from everybody else? What's your competitive edge? What gets your foot in the door? Sometimes it could be something as simple as a firm handshake, looking somebody in the eye, saying yes, sir, no sir, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. It could be a little thing that gives you a competitive edge, but at the end of the day, you have to have a competitive edge.
Speaker 2:I Believe that blue and gold jacket. I'm gonna tell you I love that blue and gold jacket Because that blue and gold jacket hugs you. It doesn't say I can't hug you because of your religion, your ethnicity, your sexual orientation, whether you're from the city or the country. It jacket just says come here, let me give you a hug and here's an opportunity. And the thing I like about the opportunity Is that the opportunity Creates the competitive edge, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:My jackets right up here on the wall and my first one, that would have been a few decades, multiple decades ago. It struggles. That actually hugs me too tight right now because the zipper doesn't come Around. But you're exactly right, aaron, this notion and we have every international convention.
Speaker 3:In our FFA experience booth we provide students with little cards that are cutouts of a blue and gold jacket that you're talking about and on the back of it they get to write what does this jacket mean to me, aaron?
Speaker 3:If I were to send you five or ten of those immediately, I think you would be in tears, because well, tears, joy, all the range of emotions at how it does exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 3:And then when you go to the other side of the sponsors board that I get the Chance to hang out with much like your sponsors board, they speak, they verbalize that difference and they talk about the fact that At certain companies, if they see FFA on the resume, it makes a difference, it opens a door and they Really look at that student through a different lens as they're approaching that level of employment. And we're working right now with a research firm to be able to document that difference because we all know it's there. But we want to put numbers around that to be able to share with state legislators and others who, yes, have seen the jackets walk through their State offices or the federal level on Capitol Hill. But we want to put numbers behind that of the significant difference that FFA has made For almost a hundred years and we're gonna make for another hundred years.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm gonna have to share with you. When we hang up today, I'm gonna have to send you a document. We, you know, we we did that research projects several years ago and we just had it redone last year and we've got incredible data and it's data exactly to the point of what you're saying. For one thing, that I hope that the teachers and the students and the sponsors who Listen to this podcast, listen to this interview. There's some really important things that scott has said and I want to draw some of these out because they're the same things that we believe here in our state. I Believe it's our responsibility as adults this is our job as adults is to create opportunities. Our job is to try to create opportunities for students and teachers to grow, for sponsors to engage. But to the young people listen, go back to what we just said 3000 high schools all looking for a job, a scholarship or an opportunity. You're all looking for a competitive edge. Thus, your responsibility is to determine the outcome.
Speaker 3:Our job is to create opportunities, but we need you to step up and determine those outcomes and say yes, and that's what I, at state conventions that I've been to over the past two years, that's been my singular message. Say yes when your ag teacher says to you you should compete in this area or you should try this with your supervised agricultural experience, or have you thought about this as a career pathway to let what do you think about exploring it? Go to this college or this two-year community college for a visit. Students, that the key is saying yes, because that's when you'll get to what Aaron was just talking about. That's when you start to demonstrate and and evolve and and grow, and it's through those experiences.
Speaker 2:The bottom line is when we think about folks like scott and scott and I know in and so to this audience, yeah, we know so many people that wore the blue and gold jacket, and they didn't have to be experts in everything, but somewhere along the way in that jacket they picked up a skill set, they picked up something they could put in their personal toolkit, and what they found is that success begets success, and sometimes just the confidence of getting up and saying the creed Could be the very confidence that gets you up to say your first business presentation.
Speaker 2:So, when we talk about the ag science and the ffa experience, you know, scott, one of the other things that we're we're going to include in the document that we're working on Is you know, we hear people say things like oh, I took an ag class, took an ag class. Well, if you're not in our world, you probably have no idea what that means and you probably have no idea how many there are. And so we're going to talk about the fact that there's over 49 courses in ag science education. We're going to talk about the industry based certifications in the programs of studies and all the ffa competitions that get us to those incredible statistics that set our students apart From their colleagues.
Speaker 3:I look forward to reading that and sharing it.
Speaker 2:Because it's we're all in this together, and that's the other thing that I appreciate about scott's leadership and the leadership of so many others that we work with across the country. We have no hidden agendas and we have no secrets. The success of a kid in Delaware, connecticut, rhode Island, wyoming, utah, is just as important as this for us to have a successful kid in the state of texas. The world is a much smaller place because of technology and you know us. Preparing students, no matter where they're being groomed, benefits us all, and I think that's one of the things that I appreciate about scott and his enthusiasm is that you know when you listen to what national ffa is doing. They're trying to encourage and power and equip All the states for success. Is that not correct, scott?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It's one of the core pillars of our strategic plan that we started last spring. You know, I firmly believe that we exist in a what one would call, maybe, a dealer driven delivery system. Take your your board chair, dale, I'm itchardale. Yeah, ford corporate does not succeed and would not succeed by itself without the core work on the ground of every dealership across this country. In the same way, ffa only national, ffa only exists because of the work that happens in the 9 000 local schools, with 14 000 teachers that daily show and meet the needs of students and invite them to do things that they never thought they could do. That's the magic. Our job is to empower that system.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm gonna tell y'all. You know, I'm always in these podcasts, I'm always listening for something that becomes the title of the podcast. And and wall ago, when scott said, say yes, that's gonna be it, Because he's absolutely right, you know, if that bus is leaving the ag shop, going somewhere, try to get on it. And scott, I know that you've been to the our texas convention. We have a program called the foundation ambassadors and we train these young people to be the liaison, if you will, the texas ffa, to all of our sponsors and guests that come to convention. But one of the things that we give is we give an award to a top ambassador, called the three-foot rule, and we teach the students we said get to know everybody within three feet of you, because the people that are within three feet of you are one day going to be your colleagues, your customers, your constituents. They could be a potential business opportunity or they might be able to solve a problem that you have. The more people you know, the greater chance you're going to have to be successful.
Speaker 2:Well, you don't build those networks unless you get on the bus. That's why when you said, say yes, that's one of those little nuggets of gold in an interview that I hope people heard, say yes, because it may be the connection that provides you an opportunity to benefit your family, to benefit your church, to benefit your community. Yes, I tell people all the time about a job. I said I'm grateful just to have a job, a job that I enjoy doing that, even at the end of the month. If I do it right, I have a little bit of money left over and guess what? I might be able to help somebody else out because of that, absolutely. But none of that would have happened if I would have never put on that jacket and if I would have never said yes.
Speaker 3:If I remember right, you said yes a couple times to some public speaking activities. You said yes to run for regional and district and state office and all of those things make all of the difference.
Speaker 2:I don't know you know this story or not, but I'll tell you real quick. In 1980. You know, I never before I ever went to the state FFA convention. I went to the national FFA convention and that's all it took for me. I remember sitting there as a freshman from Cal Farlies Boys Ranch, sitting there in this incredible stadium of 50,000 people and the Battlestar Galactica theme came on.
Speaker 3:I'm sure it resonated all across municipal auditorium in Kansas City, you bet.
Speaker 2:And you know, and then these state, these national officers came out and they just I thought man, I know I'm part of something bigger than myself. Now, yes, and again I go back to that jacket. You know, a kid from a broken home, a kid that got his dinner out of a garbage, can going back to Boys Ranch and putting on that jacket. I had opportunity that I might not have ever had had. I've not had that jacket.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we do have to share, though, that during your and my generation, we actually wore that jacket with jeans. We just wore it to school. You know, today it's always reserved for just only with official dress, but that's true, I wore it a lot more than just with official dress because it meant so much.
Speaker 2:When you're proud of it. I've still got my green hand jacket and I still got yellow paint pig paint from when we used to. You know, we used to number our pigs for stocking you, and so all right, so we diverge here a little bit, but the point being, when you're listening to these podcasts, there was a great speaker one time. He said anytime you listen to a presentation, practice R2A2. So I want everybody that's listening to write that down Capital R2, capital A2.
Speaker 2:Here's the reason why I want you to recognize the concept that Scott Stump has shared with us. I want you to relate to that concept that Scott has shared with us. I want you to assimilate that concept. That means to take it in and to make it part of oneself, and then we want you to apply it. We want you to R2A2 the seeds of greatness that come from growing the future, planting the seeds that will harvest down the road. So, with that in mind, scott, give us three leadership tips. If you had a chance to speak to every high school student in America right now and say here are three things that if I could tell you to do them, plant these seeds and do them, what would they be?
Speaker 3:All right. So I begin with the one that really, truly came from my dad and from, actually, william Danforth, so tremendous agricultural leader in the space. Animal feed started Purina Mills. There was a wonderful writer and he had a book called I Dare you, and one of the core tenants in there is be your own self at your best all the time. To those listeners whenever, and those of you that are more experienced and have had more of life to go through, you know from experience that whenever you tried to be someone else or tried to do something inauthentic to you, it hasn't went as well as it would have been if you had just stepped into that moment and truly have been yourself. It also is a challenge to us to continue to grow, because it's at your best all the time, and while at your best means it's a constant pursuit, because we never arrive at the best of ourself. That is a constant growth that's moving along. So be your own self at your best all the time.
Speaker 3:The second one I would go to, for me that has been so beneficial, is work by developing the leader within you. So, john Maxwell, and it talks about the levels of leadership, and you know, going back to many of our students that are elected to a chapter office for the first time and all of a sudden feel like they have all this power in that office. Well, people will only follow you as far as your position allows and true influence doesn't happen until you take that position and build an equal amount of relationship with that. So, as you mentioned, I love that thought of the the three-foot rule Reach out, get to know the people around you, build those relationships, because that's truly how you get a greater influence and influence truly is leadership. If you want to be a leader and you want to have an influence, you've got to build those relationships as the second step, because, no matter what position you're in, it gives you that permission into those individuals lives to help lead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so for the third one, now I'll stop my head. I would go back to and root everything in, I believe, and it goes back to the creed and it's on the wall of the hallway behind me. Our creed speaks so much and I just watched, actually, a young individual from Uganda, as a part of the work that Trent McKnight does with Agricor, but presiding what they called the agricultural creed, because it is on foreign soil, so a little bit different, but she did a tremendous job. But that belief means hope. So, going back again to where I started, with gratitude, if we can constantly say I believe that something can happen, that's the first creation before it's actually manifest in our lives, in our communities, in our world. So stay rooted in belief.
Speaker 2:I don't know what else to say. That is so great. Takeaways. Here we go again. Just look at the takeaways. Be the best version of yourself that's genuine and authentic. God did not create you to be a lone ranger. He created you for relationship. Absolutely, build relationships and then I love the belief. I love it. It's just like Zig Ziglar they called Zig the purveyor of hope.
Speaker 3:You know no stinking thinking there.
Speaker 2:It's just amazing what we can do when we can at least have hope Assignment for students. If you have a takeaway here, we'll make sure this gets put in the podcast. We do a lesson plan for all these. By the way, scott, these are all carried on the ICEV platform and there's actually a lesson plan, so a teacher can actually do a lesson plan from this. But I'm going to put in the notes that students need to go watch Elvis Presley's song If I Can Dream.
Speaker 2:Elvis Presley sang a song called If I Can Dream. It probably a time in our American history where there was a lot of tension, there was a lot of angst, there was a lot of politics, there was a lot of uncertainty, and he wrote this beautiful song and sang this beautiful song about If I Can Dream. And when Scott said what he did just a second about believing that's exactly where my mind went. I thought that's what we got to hang our hat on. I do it selfishly. I'm going to Scott, I'm going to confess right here, right now. If anybody ever wants to know why I do what I do, I'm fixing to tell y'all. Here it is. I don't know how many viewers out there have ever read or studied the statistics on dying, but they're pretty impressive. I meant as much as I would love to know that I could be around for my grandson and my granddaughters for the rest of their lives. I know that statistically that's not going to happen, but here's what.
Speaker 2:I do know. I do know that because of this great organization and the leaders that are crafted across the United States of America, the odds are in my Hattie Girls favor and in my Liam boys favor that they're going to have great leaders one day, great business leaders, great elected officials, great doctors, great educators all because of this program we call Ag, Science and FFA. And to your point, Scott, that right there is pretty gratifying when it comes to a job.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's the best job in the world.
Speaker 2:As we say in the ambassador room and I know you've been in there the essence of leadership is to plant trees under whose shade you may never sit. You know young people and teachers that are listening to this. This is what this program is all about. There were so many nuggets of gold that Scott shared today that all you got to do is plant them, but then you got to water them, you got to nurture them, you've got to harvest it. It's not going to just happen. You've got skin in the game here, but if you do, you might just have a beautiful place to sit under and guess what? You might just pass it along to somebody else someday.
Speaker 2:The other one, scott, that we like to share with the ambassador kids and I hope that those listening will take this one away as well is, we like to say and this came from Captain Sully's book on leadership, and I'll never forget it when Sully landed the plane in the Hudson and they got everybody off and they took him to the shoreline and the media was going crazy wanting to do an interview and obviously they had to do a debrief, and they took him down a private hallway where a flight attendant gave him a wet piece of paper that was folded in half and on the outside of the paper it simply read thank you. And when he opened it up, on the inside it said when your values are clear, your choices are easy For all the people that are listening, that believe in AgScience, education and FFA. Your choices have to reflect that. We can't say, well, we're going to leave that for somebody else to do. It's somebody else's responsibility to raise all the money for us.
Speaker 2:No, it's our responsibility, we all have a vested interest in this and so, you know, having shows like this and guests like this you know you have to have this and guests like Scott and others, is that reminder of possibility, it's that reminder of hope, it's that reminder of look what happens when you do plant seeds of greatness. So, scott, I really appreciate you sharing today.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's been a pleasure and, yeah, I just love the thought that we're in the business of growing the future and so glad that you're able to bring that to life for all the listeners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean we have a unique opportunity. I mean I think about what AgScience is. Think about it. You know, I tell people all the time this world's got three vital and renewable resources. Think about that. Vital and renewable resources Agriculture, youth and leadership. And we got them all Absolutely. We truly get to grow the future.
Speaker 3:We do, and you know our model with having the classroom experience, with expecting an out of classroom time where a student develops work and the ethic and applying those skills and then the FFA to really grow, that leadership and personal growth side, is like no other, not just in the United States, but there's nothing like it in the world, sadly though.
Speaker 3:You know you were talking about the number of high schools that are across the state of Texas and really, out of those 3000 high schools you know, only a thousand of those are places where students have access to get this. So, to the students that are actively participating now, be thankful that you are in a place that offers it, because two thirds of the rest of the school bodies across the state of Texas don't have access and that's not different than the rest of the nation. You know there's about, oh a little over, 15 million high school students that well, the student graduates each year. Anyway, you know we serve about a million of them, but there are so many more students that are out there and so, yeah, one other way that you could do your part is inviting others, your friends, your colleagues, other students in your school who you think would benefit, build a better world by helping them see the value of a Van Agh education.
Speaker 2:Well, that's it, we're gonna stop on that one. That's what it's all about, right there. That, right there is what. That's what growing the future is all about, right there, so all right. Well, obviously we're about to wrap up here, but we don't wrap up without one last fun question, and you get it, and that is the Scott. What is the best concert you've ever been to?
Speaker 3:Don Denver, indiana State Fair when I was a state officer and really I'd never been to a concert before, so it's probably my first and that may be what makes it part of my favorite. But he came out on stage just stool and him and his guitar, and the next hour and a half was just phenomenal. You take someone who is so accomplished as both a musician and a vocalist, yeah, so probably not the one you normally get from people, but that would be mine.
Speaker 2:I love it. I remember John Denver Well, I remember as going to the National Convention. I think I got to hear Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell sisters. So you know for the and you all are going to have to Google these names but, scott, I've had guests on here that they say it's pit bull. So I've also got you know heavy metal concerts. So I think it's just another example.
Speaker 2:I'm glad we don't all like the same things. I'm glad that we all bring this diversity of perspective to the table, of willingness to collaborate to the table. And you know and I will say this for all the people that are that are listening I've been in this job for me in Texas for 23 years. I've worked with a lot of people from the National FFA, from the state, and there's a lot of strengths and sometimes challenges and weaknesses that come with different leaders in different positions. I think we're very fortunate to have Scott Stump right now as our CEO. We were.
Speaker 2:I think the National FFA is in a strong position. I think you're in a strong position. You're trying to help the state to be stronger and I just want you to know that your leadership is recognized and appreciated, and I know that you and I both, by the way, I want to be very clear. I think you and I both know that we stand on the shoulders of the people that went before us, but I think you know, given the fact that we're where we're at right now, that means that there's a purpose that has to be served. And I just want to tell you thank you for the purpose that you're serving and the leadership that you're exercising and the collaboration that you're cultivating, Because I think that those seeds are going to be seeds of greatness for our organization for many generations to come.
Speaker 3:Thank you, aaron so all right with that.
Speaker 2:We're going to wrap up, folks. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Growing Our Future. If you want to know what the future is, grow it. That's what agriculture's taught us. Grow it, but you got to plan it, you got to work it, you got to be willing to harvest it, you got to be ready when the opportunity presents itself. And again, that's what this program is about. That's the reason we bring guests on here to plant seeds of greatness. It worked for Scott, it worked for me, it's worked for a lot of folks and it can work for you. Our job we're trying to create the opportunities. Your job you create that outcome. Until we see you again, everybody, be safe, go out and do something great for somebody and continue to make this world a great place to live, work and raise our children. Thanks.
Speaker 1:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast. This show is sponsored by the Texas FFA Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen agricultural science education so students can develop their potential for personal growth, career success and leadership in a global marketplace. Learn more at mytexasffaorg.