It seems only fitting that after her storied Sealy FFA career, Avery Oliver’s final prepared public speaking performance with her hometown on the back of her blue and gold jacket came on the National FFA Convention stage in Indianapolis, IN and culminated with a third-place finish Oct. 29.

A member of Sealy High School’s Class of 2020, Oliver advanced through the district, area and state levels to punch her ticket to nationals alongside the top 16 in each category. Oliver became just the second Sealy FFA representative in history to qualify for the National Convention and first since Andrew Fleming did so in 2016.

She made the trip with a strong contingent of familiar faces and made the most out of the trip.

“We got to bring a big group of the officer team this year and they’re always great support,” Oliver said. “My brother (Grayson) is on the officer team so he was there cheering me on as well as a bunch of the other kids that are a big part of Sealy FFA today.”

With a top-four finish in the semifinals, Oliver extended her stay into the finals and briefly got to pick the brains of the other finalists in between competing.

“One of them was from Hawaii and then there was an Indiana girl and a girl from Ohio so it was really cool to see how everybody else’s FFA works in their respective state and how they were feeling that day,” Oliver said. “I was just happy to be there; whether I got first or fourth, I was just excited for the experience.”

Going into her performance, although Oliver knew it would be the last of her Sealy FFA career, she said there were less nerves and more pride in the journey to that stage with her hometown behind her.

“I knew this was my grand finale of my entire life’s work of FFA, it was the last thing so I never really felt nervous but more of a sense of pride that this was going to be the grand finale,” Oliver said. “I got to represent Sealy one more time and I was just happy to be there representing, Sealy, Texas, our small town, up there in the big city of Indianapolis and I wasn’t really nervous at all. I was more just happy to be there, excited to compete but more importantly, just representing Sealy; with the word Sealy on the back of my jacket, I felt like I knew I had the whole town supporting me there when I was in Indianapolis.”

By the time she walked off the stage, Oliver felt like she left it all on the floor and was content to end on the third-place finish at nationals.

“I was tremendously pleased with my performance and I think (Sealy FFA Advisors) Mr. (Troy) Oliver and Ms. (Angela) Snowden can agree, that was the best that I could have done and the best that my speech could have ever sounded,” Oliver said. “It was just the epitome of years’ worth of public speaking training and all of the things that the FFA and ag industry has taught me was left on that stage there in Indianapolis.”

A moment of realization arrived at the end of the night when Troy Oliver, both an FFA advisor and Avery’s father, put things in perspective.

“We went back to the hotel that night and the group of us kind of just sat in the lobby for a second and my dad said, ‘Well, that was the end of Avery’s career wearing Sealy on your back wearing the blue and gold,’ and in that moment, it kind of hit me that it was the end of what seemed like a lifetime of doing all this amazing stuff and always getting to compete and represent Sealy,” Avery said. “I think that moment, although the end, it was just the grand finale of every event that I’ve done from freshman year all the way to now, and that just happened to be the last one. I think that there was a lot of events that we could call the best one or the grand finale but that definitely was the home run at the end of the day. That’s the last thing that I got to do and represent Sealy and just all the support I got makes me feel so special and that everybody’s always rooting on the FFA in Sealy, Texas.”

The end of one story leads to the beginning of another, although Oliver has already been participating in judging contests as part of Blinn College’s livestock judging team and was able to compete at the National FFA Convention on the high school level during a lull in the college judging season.

“The week leading up before the National Convention, I was gone in Oklahoma at a judging contest for Blinn so the overlap was crazy but it was still really fun to be able to come back home and go do that and represent Sealy,” Oliver said. “The prepared public speaking contest can be used for a multitude of different things outside of FFA to propel you in different events. Especially my collegiate livestock judging team and all of the skills that prepared public speaking teaches you can definitely be transitioned over into a livestock judging contest in the reasons room. Some of those same things that I’ve learned through that contest, I can definitely take with me into other parts of my competitive collegiate career.”