Langreck: Filled with joy

The 93rd National FFA Convention is one that will definitely go down in the history books, not just because the large majority of it was done virtually, but because the officer election and announcement was one of the most emotional and touching I have ever witnessed.

Up until this year, the most exciting election I had witnessed was when Tyler Tenbarge from Indiana was elected as the 2007-2008 National FFA eastern region vice president.

Tenbarge was the last Indiana FFA member to serve as a National FFA officer, now 13 years ago. The year he was elected I was in my senior year of high school, where I was a member of the Franklin FFA Chapter.

The officer election was on a Saturday morning, and Tyler was one of the final candidates in the running to become an officer. I had a chance to go to the session, but I had another activity to do, so I settled for watching the session on television.

When they called Tyler’s name, my family and I erupted in cheers, and Tyler was so exited to get down to the stage he just jumped over the gate and ran to the stage, his face bursting with excitement and joy.

For more than a decade, that moment was my favorite of a new National FFA officer team being elected — that is, until this year.

The election of the new 2020-2021 National FFA officers was done virtually with the final 16 candidates on Zoom with their families, friends and supporters on the screen. See for yourself online at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZ-Y9E4ecA.

All the officers that were announced were super excited, and people began to cheer with joy at hearing the name of their beloved member being called. However, one of my favorites was when they announced the central region vice president position, which went to Paxton Dahmer of Missouri.

I’m not sure if it didn’t register at first or if he was in shock, but he didn’t react. The people watching with him began jumping up and down and hugging him.

Finally, after about 30 seconds, what was going on finally registered, and the look on Paxton’s face was pure joy and excitement. He began jumping up and down and hugging those around him, completely overjoyed that he was selected.

I hope that kind of pure joy is something all individuals can experience during their lifetime.