Graceland FFA Attends CDE Day

Tuesday, September 20, 2022, the Graceland University Future Farmers of America (FFA) program attended Career Development Event (CDE) Day, which grants high school students the opportunity to explore agricultural business career options. During this event, there are livestock, horse, and dairy judging and a business management test. This year, the event was attended by 1,400 high school students. Graceland University took part by sending members of the rodeo team, including the coach, a few people from admissions, and around 18 members of the Agricultural Business program. The Agricultural Club purchased candy to pass out, and the admissions team provided Graceland University bracelets, lip balms, bags, and pens. When meeting prospective students, the admissions team provided them with cards to fill out, including their address, phone number, email address, and core interests in agriculture. These cards worked as a ticket for them to enter a trivia game, and once they got ten questions correct, they could go to the rodeo team to rope a dummy and get a free hat. In total, the admissions team ended up with 170 cards.

Graceland has been attending CDE Day for about six years. Some of the current Agricultural Business students chose to attend Graceland because of having attended and interacted with Graceland representatives in high school. The Agricultural Business major allows students to attend many exciting events and go into fields such as accounting, banking, real estate, development, government, grain merchandising, insurance, marketing/sales, risk management, and more. During the school year, there are even opportunities for these students to attend a national FFA competition. Graceland also plans to put on an FFA Day event on campus on November 10, for the first time since November 2019, where they may end up with as many as 200 high school students on campus.