Braden Burns, president of the Oklahoma FFA Association and Oklahoma State University sophomore, was the featured speaker of the Kingfisher Rotary Club last week.

Burns, who was raised with his two brothers in Kingfisher by his parents, national award-winning FFA advisers Ryan and Lori Burns, told of his fond memories of attending Rotary meetings as a youngster with his “Pa,” grandfather Tom Garrett, also a Rotarian.

He told of the challenges he felt today’s youth faced in America.

“Mine is a generation faced with the challenges of having pornography available with the push of a button and the addiction that comes with too much free time with cell phones and internet gaming,” he said.

He also noted that parental supervision across the nation was not what it once was, with single-parent households at an all-time high and with both parents usually working full-time jobs in the homes that do have both parents living under the same roof.

“Kids need structure and boundaries, which allows them to find purpose in life,” he said.

He added that there are steps to successfully discovering one’s purpose: Conflict leads to struggle, which leads to overcoming problems, which leads to a sense of purpose.

Burns said he was a big believer in the human cycle philosophy that hard men create good times, good times create weak men and weak men then create hard times.