Gary Exelby photo Dexter High School senior Aleshia Flowers earned fourth place in state FFA speaking.

Aleshia Flowers, of the Dexter FFA Chapter, placed fourth in the Extemporaneous Public Speaking Career Development Event at the 78th Missouri FFA Convention.

That means when all was said and done, she was fourth-best in the state among members of the Future Farmers of America. "First was the area competition," the Dexter senior said Monday afternoon. "Then came district and finally was the state competition."

So the process was one of winnowing and weeding out. The final competition featured Flowers pitted against 25 other members, and she finished fourth.

What makes the award even more prized is that it came in the category of Extemporaneous Speaking. That means the participant has limited choice of topic, and has only a limited amount of time to ready such a speech.

"The way it worked," Flowers said, "was that you drew three topics at random out of this container and you had to speak on one of them."

Not that Flowers had to start speaking immediately, though. She said the competition rules permitted her 30 minutes to prepare for her speech, which was itself to last between four and six minutes. "Then you had to allow five minutes for questions," she said, "so they could be sure you knew what you were talking about and not just making it up as you went along."

Her topic? "I talked about avian flu," she said.

So. apart from gaining her the honor of fourth best off-the-cuff speaker in the state\, what has memebrship in the Future Farmers of America done for Aleshia Flowers? "It's given me an opportunity to meet people I would never have met in other activities," she said.

That means FFA is a pretty select group of young people, since Flowers is already:

* on the Student Council

* the Student Body president

* a member of Future Teachers of America

* a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes

* in the Rotary Interact Club

* in the school choir

* a varsity basketball and football cheerleader

* in the school's Honor Society

Flowers also said she had learned much more from belonging to FFA than just agricultural science. "There is so much that makes up agriculture," she said, "like marketing. There is so much that I didn't know and I come from an aquaculture background."

Flowers' parents, Kelly and Kevin Flowers, own Flowers' Fish Farm.

Her advisor is Charles Kinsey, agriscience teacher at Dexter High School. "We're really proud of her," Kinsey said at the conclusion of Flowers' comments.

Despite her success in the FFA speaking competition, however, Flowers is not thinking of pursuing an agricultural career. "I was at first thinking about special education]," she said, "but now I'm thinking about marketing -- working for politicians!"

After she graduates this month, Flowers will be attending Harding University at Searcy, Ark.

MFA Inc. sponsored the Extemporaneous Speaking competition.

gexelby@dailystatesman.com