Agricultural News
Former Congressman Wes Watkins Gives Back to Oklahoma FFA
Mon, 02 May 2016 21:04:04 CDT
Former Oklahoma Congressman Wes Watkins returned to his blue and gold roots last week as he greeted FFA members during the organization's state convention in Oklahoma City. Watkins says it was an FFA convention in Stillwater years ago that inspired him to attend OSU and begin his journey of public service.
"It all started for me here in the FFA," Watkins says. "I was a green country kid from Bennington, Oklahoma. I came to OSU because the FFA got me up there, and the whole world opened up to me."
Watkins served as president of the Oklahoma FFA Association in 1958-59. He said the skills and values he learned while speaking in public, learning parliamentary procedure and even competing in livestock judging contests remain with him today.
"If we just carry what we learn in the judging contests - talk the good points first - into our human relations, we'd be wonderful," he says with a laugh.
He was excited to back among the current members discussing his new biography - much of which talks about his experiences in FFA and the impact the organization made on his early life. Watkins and his wife, Lou, donated nearly 400 copies so that each FFA chapter in the state could take one home.
"I owe the FFA more than I can ever repay it," Watkins says.
Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear Watkins, who represented Oklahoma's 3rd Congressional District in southeastern Oklahoma for 20 years, talk more about his appreciation for FFA and the lasting impression it made on his career.
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