Oh the places you'll go!

Hey everyone! Here are some of the amazing places I have been in life since June! We have been all over from Madison to Morehead City! It has been crazy amazing! Road trips, laughs, inside jokes, meeting the coolest people I will ever get to meet, building life long friends all while having a blast! I wouldn't trade this for anything! We are looking forward to more adventures to come!

Raleigh Convention Center
The Brownstone Hotel
FFA Camp - White Lake
Grange Camp - Columbia, NC
NLCSO - Daytona Beach, FL; Epcot - Orlando, FL; Lady&Sons - Savannah, Ga
Teachers Conference - Greensboro, NC
ROPE - Midway H.S. and Southern Nash H.S.
RLC's - West Region, North East Region, West Central Region, South East Region, and South Central Region

Visit's
-Spring Creek High School
-Blanden Agriscience Academy
- Southern Wayne High School
- North Davidson High School
- Longview
- Madison High School
- North Buncombe High School
- North Buncombe Middle School
- North Lenior High School
- South Granville High School

Seafood Festival - Thanks West!
Alumni Council meeting
Get Motivated Conference
National Delegate Training
1st EVER FFA Day at the NC State Fair
National Convention!!!! Awesome!!
Poultry Judging
Dairy Evaluation

Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!
- Dr. Seuss

NC State Alumni Council Meeting

I had the opportunity to attend the State Alumni Council meeting on Friday. The North Stanly FFA Alumni Chapter graciously hosted Mr. Mac Hodges, Mr. Ronnie Ansley, Mr. Keith Smith, Mr. Bledsoe, Caroline Yopp, and I. We discussed membership, fundraisers, and ways to get alumni members actively involved. The council also received updates on Agriculture Education, FFA, and the Alumni internship. Monsanto representatives were present to present the North Stanly FFA Alumni chapter a check for 2,500.00 as a part of the Growing American Communities program! A big thank you goes out to Monsanto for being a continued supporter of agriculture as well as FFA! Congratulations to the North Stanly Alumni!

"Faith is like radar that sees through the fog."

Bladen Agriscience Academy visit

Justin and I had the pleasure of visiting the Baden Agriscience Academy at White Lake. We were so excited to be able to attend their first FFA meeting!!! The BAA is part of a pilot program tin NC hat allows home school students to become FFA members if they are taking an agriculture class, have an SAE, and pay their dues. How cool is that?! NC FFA is working hard to extend the choice of FFA membership to every student! Once we arrived at White Lake, we meet some students and learned to make water balloon yo-yo’s! Next, students had the opportunity to participate in an FFA scavenger hunt! After the scavenger hunt, there was an FFA meeting. Justin and I were there to answer any questions they had about FFA and FFA opportunities. I had a lot of fun hanging out with the students and parents!

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. - John Quincy Adams

Seafood Festival

Class ended at 1:15, and I was in my car at 1:45 off to Morehead City! Thanks to Betsy, my GPS, I got to take the scenic route aka 70 Business. There are some cute little towns between Raleigh and Carteret County! We all got a little tour of the seafood festival Friday night where we meet up some AMAZING West Carteret FFA members, Bryan and Grayer! On Saturday, we donned those bright red CRAB HATS and Shrimp necklaces! You would be amazed how many people want to buy these crazy looking things! We spent the rest of the day hanging out with those OUTSTANDING FFA members, riding a few rides, and even watching the NC State Game! My first Seafood Festival was a success! Maybe I’ll be back again next year?!

Teachers Conference!

Teacher’s conference is a week during the summer where all CTE teachers across NC gain new knowledge and see the current trends and issues facing their profession. As a State Officer, I got the opportunity to meet many amazing agriculture teachers and FFA advisors who absolutely LOVE what they do – TEACH young people! Throughout the week, I had the chance to meet with the other State Officers in CTE such as HOSA, Skills USA, DECA, FBLA, etc. I also had the opportunity to attend various workshops, and got to hear what Agriculture teachers and FFA members all across the state are up too! Here are just a few; hosting FFJ members – Future Farmers of Japan, growing hydroponic vegetables, and a bus that runs off biofuels! It’s pretty sweet! I had an amazing week with all the teachers and State Officers!

The top 25 things I have learned since June 24!

25. I rip pantyhose like no other!
24. Finding three matching black skirts is harder than finding a needle in a haystack!
23. Coffee in a non-coffee cup can be a little tricky!
22. A happy meal has never tasted so good than it did after convention!
21. Grange Camp songs are addicting!
20. After camp, four people can and will have a lot of laundry, ask Jamie’s mom!
19. When it is 102 degrees outside and 110% humidity, you will not want to take off that blue jacket because it has a new meaning!
18. I bet you didn’t know that did you? Know why? Thugs and Criminals! – Dale Peterson
17. Body surfing is harder than it looks!
16. Eastern NC is subject to crazy storms at anytime!
15. The view of a rooftop is Beautiful!
14. There is a roundabout in Sampson County, and it may take 3 times around to figure out how to get to Hardee’s.
13. If you walk into a burger king and are greeted by a security guard, it may/will turn sketch!
12. Paula Dean’s Banana Pudding = A-maznig!!!!!!
11. Mr. Davis’s spidey senses are right on!
10. No matter how hard I try, I can never get a picture of the Welcome to South Carolina sign.
9. “They are not like us. We are FFA nerds, accept it and move on.”
8. Cory doesn’t get scared because he is a man – even when he is on a snake path in the dead of night!
7. Much to my disappointment if you live in New Mexico, you don’t get ran over by tumbleweeds or poked by cactus!
6. They saying -butterflies in your stomach- is ridiculous! It should be bats!
5. I think I may want to live in …… A van down by the river!!
4. When everyone is locked out of a house, and all options have been exhausted, there is always the doggie door.
3. One person can sufficiently live out of a suitcase in the trunk of a car for over a month and be perfectly happy!
2. NC FFA has some crazy cool members!!
1. I absolutely love and adore Cory, Daniel, Jamie, Alycia and Justin!!

Blast Off!

I am Elizabeth Eastep, a unique and talented individual. I promise to count my blessing often and put my life into context. I will stay true to myself and strive to do the best I can each and everyday. I will remember that God has a plan and a purpose for me, so I will be grateful for all experiences. I will schedule my priorities and not prioritize my schedule. I will live life with no regrets, and love every minute of it! I will use my talents everyday to make a positive impact upon others! This is my personal mission statement that I developed at Blast Off. Blast Off was our first leadership training as state officers, and we were all very excited to meet our facilitator Josie Noah. Blast Off gave each of us the chance to better ourselves so that we can make a greater impact! My favorite aspect of BLAST Off was Strength Finder. Strength Finder showed each of our top five strengths and mine happen to be belief, responsibility, harmony, achiever, and learner. Once we learned everyone’s unique strengths, we discussed ways that all of us could use our talents to reach our team goal of 20,000 NC FFA members! We finished up learning about building relationships, public speaking, modeling expectations, service, and agricultural issues. As we walked out of the Alumni building, we were greeted by FFA campers!!


Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. - John Wooden

Tonight's going to be a good night!

This morning all six of us went to IHOP for breakfast. Afterwards, we had our first talk with Mr. Bledsoe. He gave us so many “nuggets” of advice - Always have a good helping of humble pie; Have a great foundation; Everything has purpose. Everything. Always. Always be on time; Have no regrets; and Stay genuine. Next, we went shopping at Crabtree Valley Mall. It took forever! After that we went back to the office, grabbed our stuff and headed to no other place than…. White Lake! I rode with Daniel in his Tacoma. You can tell he is definitely from the mountains by his driving style! We drove down interstate 40 talking about the great opportunities ahead of us, where we come from, our chapters, and how excited we are to serve as State Officers. We get off at the Newton grove exit, and get to meet Alycia’s parents, Phil and Carol. They are both very nice! We took another detour to Mr. Davis mom’s house where we meet his mom and herd the infamous dog, Trevor, in the background! We all went to Skippy’s to eat! Just when we were getting ready to leave, a “hurricane” comes through! It rained and rained and rained some more! The rest of the drive was full of shenanigans and singing! We stopped at Wal-Mart to buy last minute items like towels and sheets! As we pulled into camp the song that was playing was tonight’s going to be a good night and it just fit absolutely perfect!! I have had a blast and am looking forward to so much more!


The purpose of life is to find your gift. The meaning of life is to give your gift away. - David Viscott

Election Day!

Today was absolutely amazing! It still has not yet sunk in that I am a NC State FFA Officer. Courtesy Corp had to be in the first session at 7:30. The last session was the longest of my life! I remember watching the year in review and seeing Mr. Josh Starling placing the new state officer jackets on the stage and wondering if my name was on one. The slideshow came to an end, and the nominating committee was being introduced. All 19 candidates stood up and all got in a horseshoe. The Pirates of the Caribbean song came on, and I promise my heart stopped. It was all a blur! I don’t even remember my name being called, I just remember them saying “from Bartlett Yancey”, and running on stage to Cory Wade! We got our new jacket with Association on the back! We finished the convention, cleaned up, and were swept away to the State FFA Office where there were 35 happy meals waiting on us. We all went and ate in the office and even flew our toys! We took our personality assessments, got a new email and then went to the capital city club to have supper with Mr. Jay Boyette from Farm Bureau. We got back to the office gathered our belongings and went to the Brownstown Hotel. All 6 of us sat around and talked about the amazing opportunity that had been granted to us this year. On a lighter note, we watched YouTube videos and listened to Justin play his guitar. Before bed, I hung my jacket up, so it will be the first thing I see tomorrow. That way I will know that serving as a NC State FFA Officer is no longer a dream, it is reality.