When he competed in the Division II prepared public speaking leadership development event at the Missouri FFA Convention on April 21 in Columbia, Beckham Cothren was thrilled that he got the chance to do what he loves to do – speaking in front of people.

“I’ve been doing public speaking since I was in fifth grade, so it’s natural for me,” the Montgomery County sophomore said.

Cothren turned in a strong showing at the event, placing sixth. He was one of 16 students from six districts who were selected to compete at the state level.

“It was fun,” Cothren said. “I wasn’t expecting it at all, so it was a nice surprise.”

Cothren received his sixth-place plaque during a ceremony at the Hearnes Center.

“It was very exciting,” Cothren said. “It was very nice to show my parents. They were pretty happy to see it.”

The sixth-place finish at state was one of the big highlights in Cothren’s outstanding sophomore year. He also won the FFA creed contest and was selected as one of the Greenhand degree recipients. Cothren was recently selected as historian of the MCHS FFA chapter for the 2023-24 school year.

“Beckham is extremely hard working,” MCHS co-adviser Amanda Sullivan said. “He has a natural public speaking voice. He’s a great writer. He had a great speech. He did really good.”

At the FFA state public speaking contest, all contestants are required to make a speech based on an agriculture topic they selected and researched. They present their speech in front of a panel of judges, then they undergo an additional four minutes of questions.

Cothren’s speech was about the history and future of agriculture engineering.

“We’re just trying to show people that they’re super important to how we survive as human beings,” said Cothren, who first got interested in public speaking when he was a student at Immaculate Conception School. “We need to raise awareness that it actually exists because there are some people who don’t know that.”

Cothren participated in the preliminary round during the morning. He finished in the top six in preliminaries and advanced to the finals later that evening.

Cothren’s classmate, sophomore Avery Ridgley, won the state title. Rebekah Roberts of Windsor, Reagan Pendleton of Mount Vernon, Alyssa Bargfrede of Sweet Springs and Charlie Smith of Fairfax rounded out the top five.

Cothren was one of numerous MCHS FFA members who went to the two-day convention.

“It was very nice,” Cothren said. “I enjoyed the convention, all of the public speaking and all of the retiring state officers who came up and spoke to us about their own experiences. It was kind of eye opening.”

Cothren also competes in cross country, track and Scholar Bowl at MCHS. On March 7, he earned all-Eastern Missouri Conference honors after finishing in the top eight at the EMO Scholar Bowl meet in Wright City.

“It’s very fun,” Cothren said. “It keeps me busy. I prefer to stay busy, so it’s nice to be doing something almost every night. If I’m not studying, I’ll be either giving a speech or running at a track meet.”