Moenning wins state Creed Speaking at FFA Convention

She may be in her first year in the Triton High School FFA but already Martha Moenning is well on her way to accomplishing her FFA goals.
Moenning won the first place in the state Creed Speaking contest in April and this coming fall will be headed to the national FFA Convention to compete in the national contest.
The FFA Creed is an important part of being an FFA member, she said, but the contest is a lot more involved than just reciting the words.
The creed was written in 1928 by E.M. Tiffany and was adopted as the official creed at the third National FFA Convention. It has been revised twice, at the 38th and 63rd conventions.
The creed, she says, is five paragraphs.
She, along with many other FFA members, has memorized the creed, but in a competition there is much more to it than just knowing what it says.
The creed speaking Career Development Event (CDE) is for FFA members in seventh, eighth and ninth grade. By presenting the creed from memory and answering questions about its meaning and purpose the FFA member develops self-confidence and their ability to communicate in a professional manner.
The first step of the competition, she said, is to actually recite the creed to a panel of judges. A participant has five to seven minutes to give the creed before the judges, she said. Someone is always reading silently along, she said, to make sure the participant is reciting it word for word.
The most nerve-wracking part comes after the recitation of the creed, she said, as the judges ask questions aimed at getting to the meaning and purpose of the creed.
FFA has always been an activity that Moenning wanted to be involved in and for good reason.
Not only was her mother very involved in FFA when she was growing up, Moenning said, but her older siblings, Martha and Sam, have been active members of the Triton Chapter.
“I just knew I would be involved,” Moenning said. “Watching them I wanted to be a part of it.”
She added that her brother, Sam, had competed in the Creed Speaking event when he was a Greenhand (new member) and Martha learned the creed too but did not compete.
She credited her mother, sister, Megan Andrist, the past Region 7 president