OWENSVILLE — The Future Farmers of America (FFA) recently returned from a whirlwind three-day trip to their national conference in Indianapolis that included a concert, a rodeo and tours of a college and a cattle breeding company. Each day they woke up early, stayed busy all day and turned in late–the perfect training for future farmers.

The Owensville chapter of FFA took 27 freshmen and sophomores on their trip to the 99th iteration of the national FFA convention. The convention was all about helping the next generation of farmers–and all of those who support farmers–to become better leaders and to hone the skills that will lead them to future success.

The convention brings so many students to Indianapolis that it needs to be broken down into multiple sessions. There were 73,000 at the session the Owensville FFA attended. They arrived Wednesday, Oct. 21, and after checking in at the convention center the group attended a Ty Myers concert in the evening.

The students spent all day Thursday attending workshops, speeches, contests and more. The keynote speaker that day was Scott McKain, who was an FFA member growing up and has spoken around the world. In the evening the students got to wind down at a special edition of the Three Hills Rodeo, put on especially for all the FFA members visiting Indianapolis.

On the way home Friday, the group toured Double Diamond Angus and Genetics and Lincoln Land College, both in Illinois. Double Diamond does embryo transfers and is focused on improving livestock for farmers. FFA members have differing interests and goals for their future and Hadlee Ketcherside is one student who was especially interested in touring a business focused on cattle breeding.

“I kind of want to do the genetic stuff. We got to tour the farm about embryology and breeding and the animal science side of agriculture,” she said.

Two professors gave the group a tour of the agriculture and mechanics related departments at Lincoln Land College before the final leg of their drive back to Owensville.

The FFA group from Hermann also attended the convention. Their four-person ag mechanics team won the Missouri state competition, allowing them to the state in Indianapolis. They finished in the top ten at the national event, according to their Facebook page.

Owensville didn’t have any groups competing this year, but have “had several nursery, landscape or horticulture teams go to compete in the past,” said Matt Ketcherside, who teaches shop classes and animal science at Owensville High School and was a chaperone for the convention trip.