#025 Desiree Lafountaine

Setting Roots with Ian Bennett

Desiree and I met almost a year ago at the National FFA Convention as part of the national officer election process. I was a candidate for office, and she served as one of 9 members on the selection committee. Over the course of that week, Desiree sat in on, and I went through over 10 rounds of interviews. After convention, we stayed in touch and got to meet up again in Springfield Missouri. Desiree is originally from Connecticut and after spending two years at a local community college she transferred out to Missouri State where she studies Agricultural Communications. I flew out to Springfield for the start of a two week mad-dash across the state where I led two events a day and traveled north across the western side of the state. After spending to some time in the Springfield area, I managed to catch up with her again, and we reminisced on the election process. We sat down to do this impromptu episode were we discuss the process in detail. While we don't into specifics about last year, we did get to talk about the revisions that recently went into place in the election process. We discuss the variety of interviews that take place and how candidates go about being successful in each round of the interviews. If you've ever had questions about how national officers get elected, this is the episode for you. Enjoy.