AFBF Young Farmers & Ranchers (ages 18-35)
National Leadership Conference
Orlando, Florida 2011
We arrived at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort very late Friday night. The resort was beautiful and HUGE. It was almost a mile walk from the check-in counter to our room. :)
Saturday, February 5th:
Bob Stallman, AFBF President, gave a welcome address to begin the conference. Then we listened to Ken Schmidt, the former director of communications for Harley-Davidson, who did a great job in his keynote address about the importance of building relationships, connecting with customers and gave ideas to separate yourself from others in the business. What worked for Ken and Harley-Davidson was asking their customers about themselves and hearing their stories... to help them feel good about you before trying to sell your product.
I didn't get any pictures, but we had a PAL Graduation Luncheon. Garrick Hall from Cove, Utah was one of the 9 graduates of the two year program. The Partners in Agriculture Leadership (PAL) program is designed to help today's agricultural leaders accelerate the leadership skills and solidify their role as advocates for agriculture.
The Saturday closing keynote address was given by the American astronaut, Captain Jim Lovell. He is famous for his leadership and action demonstrated during the mission of the Apollo 13 spacecraft crisis. Through teamwork and decisive leadership Lovell and his crew safely returned to Earth.
We had the evening free... our large group from Utah made arrangements to have dinner at Medieval Times. The people we've met from all over our state and going to these Conferences together makes being in Farm Bureau so fun! We have a blast with these people.
We ate an 11th century-style feast with our hands while we watched the Knights compete on horseback in the arena.
Sunday, February 6th:
Sunday morning the Collegiate Discussion Meet began. Our 2 finalists from Utah didn't make the National Sweet 16 cut. :( But we thought they did well.
Brandon, Levi (with two thumbs up!), and Kole at one of the Sunday Breakout Sessions.
Judy Alberg is the Regional Product Sourcing Program Manager with Feeding America Food Banks. She and the others gave ideas for hunger relief projects, and encouraged us as YF&R members to get involved with our local Food Banks to help make a difference.
Then we had a luncheon sponsored by Case. We sat with other couples from Utah.
Kole, Levi, Jen and Brandon (us), and Wes. It's so funny... at all the conference luncheons and dinners they serve ice tea. You can tell which tables are from Utah cause all our ice tea glasses are left untouched.
During lunch they had 30 second State Introductions given by each YF&R State Chairman. Dustin is Utah's State Chair bragging that Utah is #1 in the Nation for child reproduction... among other things. :)
More breakout Sessions continued after lunch and the Collegiate Discussion Meet Finals.
The Conference hosted a Super Bowl Party for the YF&R, but Brandon and I decided to check out the resorts fun pool and spa for the evening instead.
The conference Closing Session was given by a motivational speaker, Andrew McCrea. He has experiance as a rancher and is an award-winning journalist. He shared practical ways to be an extraordinary leader.
Then we all divided into 4 different tours. Everyone from Utah was on the same tour and went to Deseret Ranches, then to Kempfer Ranch and Sawmill.
Deseret Ranches is located in Central Florida and covers 290,000 acres of land. It is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
This is their office... they had pictures hanging on the walls of pasts LDS prophets riding horses there on the ranch.
We had 3 large tour buses driving through the Ranch as one of their "Cowboy" employees told us facts about the Ranch.
They brought us to one of the stalls where they gather and check their cattle.
Deseret also manages 1,700 acres of citrus... mostly consists of juice oranges.
We ate lunch at the Deseret Rodeo Arena. Every year the Deseret employees and their families put on a rodeo and invite the locals to attend. They said about 2,000 people usually show up for the event and it's something they really look forward to. All of us from Utah sat in their bleachers for a picture.
Right next to Deseret is the Kempfer Ranch & Sawmill. It's a family owned commercial cattle operation and they also run a sawmill onsite which processes between 25,000-30,000 feet of Cypress each day.
The Kempfer family was very welcoming to us. George Kempfer was the tour guide for our bus and told us all about their operation.
We saw a small crocodile along the road, George stopped the bus, and jumped out to catch it! This is George and his twin running to get it.
He passed the crocodile around to let us hold it. I thought I'd be fine, but the texture and how meaty it was surprised me and I was totally shacking in my pants. We have to hold it's jaws closed and I almost dropped it... that would've been bad! All of us from the West would've scattered quick!!! The other YF&R members who lived around Florida didn't care to get out of the bus... crocodiles aren't anything new to them.
Tuesday, February 8th:
The Conference ended yesterday, but most of us from Utah stayed an extra day to play! Lots of them went to see Disney World, Epcot, and the Animal Kingdom. Brandon and I wanted to play where the big roller coasters are, so us and about 10 other couples spent our day at Universal Studios in Orlando.
