Oregon FFA Member Elected to National Officer Team

At the recent National FFA convention, Oregon FFA member Jason Wetzler was elected as the 2013-14 Western Region Vice President. Unlike many FFA members, Wetzler has been around and aware of the FFA program since he was a child -- both his mother and step-father are ag instructors in Oregon. So he grew up going to both state and national FFA conventions long before he was old enough to participate.

Wetzler shared that he was 10 years old when he decided on the goal of becoming a national FFA officer. He was Oregon's state FFA Treasurer in 2011-12 and participated on his school's parliamentary procedure team, extemporaneous public speaking and ag communication -- all three on the national level. He also raised and showed hogs. He shares what he is looking forward in the next year as a national FFA officer.

Wetzler: "There is a few different things that I'm excited about and mainly it is the interaction with the FFA members. There are 580,000 people that are zipping up the blue jackets doing great things across this country. I'm excited to see their projects, see what they are passionate about, see how I can connect with them and make some friends along the way. I know that my team is definitely excited about going to Japan we get to do an international trip here in about a month and half. It is going to be awesome. So we are already excited about that. That is some of the highlights."

Wetzler is now a sophomore at Oklahoma State University where he is majoring in Agricultural Leadership. He says he hopes to one day teach agriculture internationally.