WHS grad travels more than 24,000 miles as FFA leader

One of Wellington’s own was elected to state FFA office last year.

Ryan Roberts, a 2010 grad­u­ate of Welling­ton High School, was elected to the office of 2011-2012 Ohio State FFA Dis­trict 2 pres­i­dent. Over the past year Roberts has served as an Ohio FFA offi­cer, attended classes at Ohio Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity and worked.

Roberts trav­eled more than 24,000 miles, vis­ited more than 20 FFA Chap­ters, and spoke to more than 10,000 FFA members.

Roberts vis­ited with mem­bers of Ohio State Sen­a­tor Gayle Manning’s staff, pres­i­dent to the Ohio Farm Bureau, as well as other gov­ern­ment offi­cials such as Gov­er­nor John Kasich.

Roberts and his team­mates, the other 14 state offi­cers, trav­eled to Indi­anapo­lis twice and attended four ses­sions of FFA Camp at Camp Musk­ingum in Car­rolton, Ohio.

Roberts has impacted mem­bers through his spo­ken word.

He said he presents a real life approach to mem­bers across the state, and stressed to mem­bers that each has value, and that each has a dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tion of strengths that no one else has. Together they can cre­ate a bet­ter world.

Roberts said the FFA has changed his life in ways that he can­not put into words and if mem­bers take advan­tage of this oppor­tu­nity, their lives will never be the same.

Roberts said he cred­its Welling­ton schools super­in­ten­dent Fran­cis Scruci, pres­i­dent of the Welling­ton Board of Edu­ca­tion Sally Stew­art, Welling­ton High School teacher John Perry and Welling­ton High School prin­ci­pal Chris Wert for their con­stant support.

He also said FFA advi­sor Shan­non Thome showed him how to be an effec­tive leader and much more. Since Thome has been the FFA advi­sor and agri­cul­tural edu­ca­tion instruc­tor at Welling­ton High School, he said she has grown the chap­ter to almost dou­ble the size that it was when she started. The Welling­ton FFA Chap­ter now has more than 70 members.

Roberts is the son of Debra Dezso, and is a junior at Ohio Chris­t­ian Uni­ver­sity study­ing lead­er­ship and gov­ern­ment relations.

Posted by Jason Hawk on May 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.