Spencer’s Cortney Zimmerman named National FFA officer

On Nov. 6, Cortney Zimmerman came home to Spencer to the sound of thunderous cheers and rounds of applause from friends, family and FFA members from across the area who came out to celebrate her latest achievement of becoming the Central Region Vice President of the National FFA Organization. Zimmerman was selected for the position for the 2021-22 year from among 36 candidates from across the nation during the FFA National Convention held on Oct. 27-30 in Indianapolis, Ind.

With the selection, Zimmerman becomes only the eighth Wisconsin FFA member in history — and the first from Spencer — to be chosen as a National FFA Officer. The significance of the achievement was not lost on the many attendees of the “Welcome Home” ceremony held at the LuCille Tack Center on Saturday, with several speakers coming to the stage to talk about Zimmerman’s accomplishment, her past dedication to the Spencer FFA and the Wisconsin FFA, and to express their well wishes for a successful year.

The process of becoming the latest Wisconsin FFA member to be chosen as a National Officer was one Zimmerman said was years in the making. Since she first became involved in FFA as a young child, she said the people around her helped form her into the person she is today, providing guidance and support through the many stages of her FFA career.

“Thank you every single one of you,” she said at the ceremony. “I will never forget the people who helped me get here. My family, they have been with me from the very beginning, they have always been at my side.”

From the Spencer FFA (she graduated in 2020), Zimmerman moved on to serve as a state officer during the past year, traveling throughout the state to promote the FFA organization and to help every member find their own ways to contribute to their chapter and community. When it was all said and done, though, she said she felt there were things she had yet to do and so made the decision earlier this year to begin the process to run for national office.

“I felt like there was more, like I was writing a book. I don’t feel like I’m done, there is something more that I can share,” she said. “I had to write the last chapter of my book; I still had more to give.”

Although she made the commitment, Zimmerman said the process was not as simple as just saying the word. There was a great deal of self reflection, and the process of figuring out just what kind of person she truly was and what she wanted to contribute helped her to grow even more.

“Going into this process, I found that you just had to find you and dig deeper into yourself,” she said. “When we were going through the process, one of the questions asked was why I wanted to be here. I struggled with it, to put it on paper. It was hard … I decided that no matter what I was going to be myself. I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not. I found that if I can’t be myself that I can’t be an officer.”

Before being chosen as one of the final 36 candidates, Zimmerman said each one of them had spent the week prior going through a selection process that trimmed through the list of potential officers. Each day was different and challenged her in many of the ways she will be challenged during her year on the road visiting FFA chapters across the country.

“It’s quite a long process,” she said. “From the first day in the week, the first thing you do is have 10 minutes to talk about yourself. There’s five questions and you have to tell all about your life in 10 minutes. Then there is a one-on-one with each interviewer, and then it’s stand and deliver. You are given a topic and have to give a speech on it and have 5 minutes of questions afterwards … The round robin, where there is three rooms talking about different topics related to agriculture, FFA. Then you run a workshop with a group of kids and then there is the ‘cry round.’ The reason why it’s called that is that there is a lot of crying, you don’t go through it without shedding tears. They ask a lot of deep questions.”

At the end of each round each day, Zimmerman said the hopeful officers were given letters stating whether they had advanced to the next round or had not made it. It was an arduous process, and at the end, Zimmerman stood in the front row at the National FFA Convention waiting for the final result.

“(That morning) When I was going into this, I told myself that if it didn’t happen it would be OK,” she said. “When I was up there I just stared at the floor. I didn’t know what to think. We knew it was going to be the Central Region that was going to be announced first, I was more focused on that, if I got it, I would be up there all alone. But I was finally at peace with myself. I hear ‘Wis-‘ and that’s the last thing I heard, such a surreal moment, hearing ‘Wis-’ and going up there on stage was incredible.”

For Zimmerman’s family, the whole experience has been surreal as well.

“For her, this is a dream come true,” said her father, Mark Zimmerman, Spencer’s long-time FFA adviser. “She has grown up into this amazing young woman. It is amazing for both our daughter and for our state. She is going to be going nationwide and she has 300 days of travel ahead of her and will be attending eight or nine state conventions. She will be gone all the time, it will be crazy.”

When it is all said and done, Zimmerman will have concluded a historic year for herself and for the Spencer community she hails from. But for her, the most important thing she hopes to accomplish is to let every member across the country know that no matter how big or how small your role in FFA is, every single member matters.

“I want to let every member know that they are important, every one of us has a role to play in this organization,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who you know or what you know, you have a role in this organization and are extremely valued. At the end of the year I want to be able to look back and know that I did everything that I could for the members, even if I just met them for two minutes.”

“I felt like there was more, like I was writing a book. I don’t feel like I’m done, there is something more that I can share. I had to write the last chapter of my book; I still had more to give.” -- Cortney Zimmerman, National FFA Central Region Vice President

CHEYENNE THOMAS/STAFF PHOTO