FFA Found Me
Even though she just graduated from high school, Addyson Hackney can discuss the characteristics of an endangered livestock breed with the poise, confidence and knowledge of an animal advocacy executive. It’s a far cry from the young girl who was so shy and nervous to talk to strangers that her mother would give Hackney a quarter if the youngster could name the color of the person’s eyes.
Hackney’s small world closed in even more when her father passed away unexpectedly just as she entered middle school. “It rocked me to my core,” the Oakleaf FFA alumna from Florida says. “It took me a very, very long time to process it. How I processed my grief was through FFA, which became a reason for me to get out of bed in the mornings. It helped me find my place in the world.”
Drawn to join FFA because of her love of animals, Hackney drifted for months in a fog of grief. But the FFA chapter president made an effort to include her so she wasn’t standing alone. “It wasn’t some huge, dramatic moment,” Hackney says. “It was as simple as a conversation. But when you feel invisible, something small like that becomes something powerful, and I realized there was a place where people actually cared whether I showed up.”
Slowly, the shy introvert took a step forward. “My advisor said I should sign up for a speech competition, and that scared me out of my wits,” Hackney recalls. “But I got up there and did the speech, and it just blew me away how many people were there to support me and tell me I did well. And I realized I could do better. I could do even more.” By her sophomore year, she was a chapter officer.
Through FFA, the longtime rabbit lover also discovered the Silver Fox rabbit breed, and as she met Florida Silver Fox breeders, she learned the species was listed as “critical” on the Livestock Conservancy’s list of breeds facing extinction. Hackney began raising and showing Silver Fox rabbits, earning Best of Breed awards several times.
She’s become so good at championing the breed that she’s been elected to the Southeast Silver Fox Breeders Board of Directors. “Having someone so young on the board is really what we need to get more youth involved,” Hackney says. “Just this year, the Silver Fox breed has been moved off the endangered list, thanks to conservation efforts.”
Advocacy for Ag Includes Education and Action
Hackney’s advocacy is informal as well. She volunteered in the special-needs classroom at Oakleaf Junior High, where she noticed most of the students had little knowledge of agriculture. After sharing her FFA experiences, she wanted to do more. She wrote and illustrated “The Costume Contest,” a children’s book detailing a competition at the county fair. “I read it to kids in several classrooms, and I also made a little assignment that goes with the book,” Hackney explains. “Several of them told me they want to compete, just like the kids in the book, when they get to high school.”
Her supervised agricultural experience (SAE) involved Muscovy ducks, a large species prominent in Hackney’s area but not native to Florida. “They consume a lot of resources taken from our native wood ducks, and the Muscovy ducks’ waste contributes to algae blooms, which kill fish,” Hackney explains. She researched local policies on ways to remove the Muscovy ducks humanely. After harvesting Muscovy duck meat, she created a dehydrated animal food product.
A Second Home
In 2024, Hackney received the Florida State FFA degree, awarded to members who demonstrate exceptional leadership skills and agricultural business experience. It’s a high honor, but Hackney’s most treasured reward is the confidence she found wearing the blue jacket.
“FFA is so powerful because it is so much more than an organization,” she says. “It is a place where students discover confidence they didn’t know they had. It’s where leadership is learned through experience and where mentors genuinely care about your success. FFA gives students opportunities to challenge themselves, grow as leaders and develop skills that will follow them long after high school. For many people, it becomes a second home, like it did for me.”
