Category: Undergraduate Students
Developing leadership skills at the Delaware FFA State Convention at UD
April 01, 2026 Written by Katie Peikes | Photos by Kendall Metz and Rebecca Moore
A sea of blue corduroy jackets spilled into the Townsend Hall Commons at the University of Delaware College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The members of youth leadership organization FFA walked from table to table at the career fair, soaking up knowledge of various agricultural and environmental career paths.
Maci Carter, a crop insurance agent with Horizon Farm Credit greeted the students as they walked up to her table. She spoke with them about what a career at Horizon Farm Credit looks like.
Not only is Carter a UD Class of 2024 alumna and agriculture and natural resources and plant science double major, but she also grew up participating in Delaware FFA, making this a full circle moment. She even got to judge an FFA competition.
“It brings back so many memories,” Carter said. “FFA shaped my public speaking skills, my leadership skills, my soft skills. I’m able to do well in my job in sales because of the experiences I had in competitions, networking and FFA events.”
From March 23 to March 26, more than 700 middle school and high school students from across Delaware cultivated their passion for agriculture and honed their leadership skills at UD for the 2026 Delaware FFA State Convention. This was the second year in a row the FFA state convention was held at UD. The students practiced their public speaking skills, learned about agricultural marketing and communications, helped protect a creek from future flooding, and more.
“FFA has really shaped the person I am today,” said Elizabeth Nicholson, a junior at Smyrna High School.
Nicholson said the various career development events help build leadership skills while also helping students form lifelong connections. Nicholson and her peers at Smyrna High were at the state convention to accept the first-place award for the FFA Meats Evaluation and Technology Career Development Event.
The students had gone to a meat locker to identify different cuts of meat and grade them based on federal quality standards, helping them understand meat industry standards. Last year, the Smyrna team won third place. Their first-place win this year means they’ll head to nationals.
“We were all very shocked but also so excited that we won,” Nicholson said. “We were so thankful that all our hard work paid off.”
Meanwhile, other competitions happened on site at UD, like extemporaneous public speaking. The event has FFA members speak about an agriculture-related topic in front of a crowd without prior rehearsal. Luke Metzner, a senior at Seaford High School and an FFA officer, spoke about how urban schools can better teach agriculture in unique ways.
Metzner said from the moment he joined FFA his freshman year, it had a huge impact on him.
“FFA has been truly wonderful in my life,” Metzner said. “It’s impacted my leadership, my interactions with everybody else. I don’t know where I’d be without it.”
Metzner will go to college in North Carolina this fall to study pre-med. For other students who are not sure where they plan to further their education, Noël Wolhar, CANR’s associate director of undergraduate recruitment, was at the career fair to pitch CANR’s undergraduate programs.
“FFA students have such an incredibly strong background in leadership and public speaking,” Wolhar said, “it makes them ideal candidates for what we do.”
