Braden Burns spent the first part of last week in Tulsa at the 96th Oklahoma FFA Convention & Expo.

The convention ended well into the night and Burns, after the grueling start to the week, had to spend all day Thursday preparing a final for a leadership class at Oklahoma State University, where he’s wrapping up his freshman year as an agribusiness major.

On Friday morning, it was yet another final.

It was a busy week.

Things aren’t going to slow down.

During that final session of the convention, one of the last orders of business was naming the 2022-23 Oklahoma FFA state president.

It’s Braden Burns.

The 2021 Kingfisher High School graduate became the fourth state FFA president from the school.

He joins Richard Every (1947- 48), Danny Grellner (1989-90) and Chelsea Clifton (2008-09).

For Burns, though, his mind wasn’t on this rarest of accomplishments.

It was on the likes of Quetta Woodall of Afton. She served with Burns on the 2021-22 state officer team.

He was the secretary and she was the northeast area vice president.

Both were vying for the office of state president.

“What was more important to me at the time were the people who weren’t going to be on my team this next year,” he said of a group that he called his “best friends.”

“What was their well-being?” Burns continued. “I wasn’t that worried about myself, but them.”

But Burns still had reason to celebrate.

He was announced in front of thousands of fellow FFA students from across the state as well as a strong contingent of his own family.

Prior to being named president, Burns introduced his successor as state secretary, Ava Jernigan of Owasso.

During his introduction, Burns took time to thank some people important in his life: his grandparents Tom and Irene Garrett of Kingfisher and Mickey and Janet Burns of Minco.

Or, as he called them, Grammy and Pa and Nana and Grandy.

He echoed that when talking with the Times & Free Press on Thursday.

“Everything – whether good, bad or ugly – I’ve ever done can be traced back to them somehow,” he said of his four grandparents. “People skills, successes, everything.” Burns, his older brother Peyton and younger brother Colton, spent their fair share of time with their grandparents.

That’s because their parents – Ryan and Lori Burns – spent two decades building Kingfisher FFA into the state’s premier chapter.

Now both are making their impact at Dover. Burns said he knows Dover students are getting what Kingfisher students received and what he and his brothers grew up around.

“Nobody understands what it’s like for their parents to be ag teachers,” he said. “Lots of people have busy parents, but I can’t think of anyone I ever met whose parents poured into the lives of students the way mine did and that’s their job. It just comes natural to them, so I have parents who pour into me and my brothers as well.”

That “pouring into” meant Burns spent a lot of time eating Grammy’s food.

“Pretty much every weekend during the spring semester, my parents were somewhere else,” he said. “So they provided a lot, whether it was a bed, a meal, whatever. They definitely don’t get enough credit and it was cool to have them there, especially a family like mine who knows the impact FFA has.”

After Burns finishes the semester at OSU, it’s back to work with the new FFA officer team. Also elected were Emily Beaner of Woodward as reporter; Kyla Taylor of Oklahoma Union as northeast area vice president; Caleb Horne of Morrison as northwest area vice president; Presley Pullen of Stratford as central area vice president; Hayden Harper of Madill as southeast area vice president; and Jorja Scherler of Chattanooga as southwest area vice president.

“We’ll get our jacket sizes turned in next week and training a couple of weeks after that,” he said. “I’ll train with the new team and bond with them over the summer.”

The summer includes the annual two weeks of Alumni Leadership Camp in June.

During next school year, Burns will attend OSU on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be dedicated to his FFA duties.

Burns said he learned a lot from working with the outgoing state president, Dalton Rogers.

Like Rogers, Burns said he wants to use his experience and wisdom of already having gone through a year of being a state officer to help guide the new team.

“I learned the most from failing and failing forward from my experiences,” he said. “My goal as president is to be someone my team can lean on because of what I’ve been through, but without spoiling their own experiences.

“To me, my job is to know my team is getting the most of their experience and that’s my goal.”