"It will be a growing experience" . . .

. . . An expression my Mom used whenever one of her five kids was preparing to start a new adventure. We got up early Friday morning to head down to Fresno's Convention Center to watch our granddaughter participate with her team from Minarets High School in FFA's Parli-Pro State Competition. Sixteen high schools from all over the state of California made it this far. Competitions started at 9 a.m. and finished at 4 p.m. It was a long day but what a joy to watch these teenagers working within a team of six, proudly representing their high school. The sixteen teams who made it to the finals, after months of regional competitions, were divided into four groups. The top three teams from each group moved on to the second round, leaving twelve teams to compete. From the second round, six teams were chosen to move on to the final round on Saturday.

There are five "Chairs" (Karah is Chair 5, far left, and Chair 1 -shown here at far right -also acts as secretary) and one "President" who, with her gavel, leads the session. When the team comes into the room and takes their appropriate spots, they are given one minute to read their card (instruction) and compose their thoughts.

Then the show begins, with the team doing their thing, following their instructions . . . all led by the President, using Parliamentary Procedure to the "enth" degree. It's almost musical, and moves quickly because they are being timed — should they go over their score is docked.

Karah making her point in the debate.

When the timer goes off, hopefully each team member has succeeded in his/her assignment and the entire team stands in front of the judges. The judges ask a question of each team member, testing their knowledge of Parliamentary Procedure. Their answers are added to their overall score. Then there are two more minutes where the judges can ask any member on the team more questions. When the timer calls "Time" — the team leaves the room and waits for all sixteen teams to finish.  At the end of the day, Minarets High School was one of six teams called back to participate in the finals on Saturday.

 

Karah's looking pretty happy after it was announced that Minarets made it to the finals— quite an accomplishment for this "Novice" team!

Jen volunteered to drive part of the team to the competition. Of course what this really means is that they had to get up in the pre-dawn hours to feed the goats and rabbits and chickens before they changed into city clothes to make the drive.

Ken and I witnessed this new adventure on Friday, and it definitely was a "growing experience" both for these kids and even for us. We took a pass on Saturday, but crossed our fingers all day thinking about "our" team. At the end of Saturday we found out they took sixth place . . . of course they were a bit disappointed. But I can tell you, as grandparents, we are mighty proud of the whole team for making it to State finals. This is a novice team and this was their first year competing — so being sixth in the whole state of California is something of which to be mighty proud!

Life is Good!