My turn: FFA state officer finishes year of service with impactful retiring address

INDIANAPOLIS — Every year during the Indiana FFA State Convention, the Indiana FFA state officers, who retire at the end of that year’s convention when a new team is elected, have the opportunity to give a retiring address.

The retiring address is the state officers’ last chance to impact Indiana FFA members by inspiring them through something that greatly impacted their life or just a message with a key point that the officer is passionate about.

From the time I was a member of FFA myself and attending the state convention to working for Indiana AgriNews, it is safe to say I have heard several dozen retiring addresses.

During this year’s Indiana FFA State Convention, I had the opportunity to listen to a retiring address that kept me riveted to my seat. That retiring address came from Loren Matlock, the 2020-2021 Indiana FFA southern region vice president.

Before I dive into the message of Matlock’s retiring address, I want to share a little background about him first, including that he is a tall, funny guy who loves livestock.

Now, I have to admit when Matlock came out with sunglasses on and playing air guitar to a Dire Straits song, my expectations of his retiring address weren’t very high, but I was wrong.

What started as an air guitar solo quickly turned into a retiring address about a life and death situation that led Matlock on a personal journey.

Matlock began to tell a story about how he and his family, including his cousins, did a lot of fence building. On one fall day, Matlock sat out with his dad and cousins to put up fencing.

Matlock said that to cover more ground he and his cousin went to one area to do fencing, while his dad went to another site. He then proceeded to talk about how they came upon the common problem farm kids run into, which is the tractor only had one seat, so someone had to sit on the fender.

Matlock took the fender, while his cousin drove, and they carried on a conversation and witty banter about who built fence better. Suddenly everything changed on that cool November day, when Matlock realized he saw the field, but then he noticed the cornstalks were getting closer and closer, until his skull and face were being crushed by the very tractor he had just been on.

Once the tractor was off of him, his cousin ran to check on him. Originally he stood up and said he was fine, before collapsing back on the ground with blood coming out of his ears, mouth and nose — and even his tears were blood.

His cousin asked him if he was OK, and Matlock answered no and asked him to call his dad. His cousin couldn’t get a hold of Matlock’s dad, so he called his father and told him that he had just run Matlock over with the tractor.

When Matlock’s dad heard the news, he was six to seven minutes away from where the accident happened, but Matlock swears somehow his dad was there in 30 seconds. His dad proceeded to go over to him and hold him in his arms and tell him that he loved him.

Not long after, paramedics arrived and put Matlock on a head board and he was flown by helicopter to Riley Children’s Hospital. After several scans and tests, besides a banged up face, the only injury Matlock suffered from was a cracked eye socket.

I was already on the edge of my seat thoroughly captivated by Matlock’s retiring address when he began to talk about reactions he got at school after the accident, like it wasn’t a big deal, until someone asked Matlock a life-changing question.

Matlock proceeded to tell the Indiana FFA members at the convention how one individual posed the question, if the accident that day had ended his life, would he be OK with that?

Matlock said he originally answered yes, but the question continued to weigh on him and got him thinking that if he had died that day, would he really be OK with the fact that before he went out to the field, his mom had said she loved him, but he didn’t say it back? Or, was he OK with the fact that the last conversation with his dad had been the two of them arguing?

Matlock began to realize that he would not have been OK if he had lost his life on that November day, and he needed to work on the relationships in his life and not put them off thinking he would have tomorrow, or the next week or even the next year to fix them.

The building went completely silent at this moment, until Matlock spoke again and said he could tell everyone right now that if he were to pass away he was content with his relationships in life and his relationships with his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

He then faced the FFA members and without blinking asked them if they would be OK with their life if the sun didn’t rise tomorrow. He said it took him almost losing his life to be able to answer that question.

Matlock then ended his retiring address by telling FFA members to live for today because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed.

As I stood up with others in the crowd to give Matlock a standing ovation, it was then that I saw the real impact of his retiring address in the faces of FFA members who looked like they took his words to heart. I know I did.