On April 25-26, fifteen students of all grade levels who participate in the Future Farmers of America club (FFA) traveled the two and a half hours to Columbia, Missouri to compete in the Future Farmers of America State event. FFA State is a, “competition of contests. The top 45 schools out of 350 schools in the state qualify,” described FFA sponsor and Agriculture teacher, Matt Crutcher.

Students can participate in a variety of categories designed to test the FFA member’s knowledge, ranging from Competitions, Convention, Workshops, Career Show, and Degree Awards. Various subdivisions were contained within those categories, such as Nursery and Landscape, and Dairy Cattle. Among the students that went to compete in State was freshman William Mcmains, who participated in the Farm Management event. “At state we arrive to test,” Mcmains stated.

He continued, “We take about a 100 question test. After we finish that we get to hang out in Columbia for Thursday and Friday. While in Columbia we go to a convention where we learn how we did on the test and see if we placed.”

Of the 15 FFA students that attended State, six of them ranked in the competition. In no particular order, Lucas Crutcher (9) ranked in Group 1 for Record Book and Dairy Cattle, Brooke Heaven (11) ranked in Group 1 for Record Book, Devon Miller (9) ranked in Group 1 for Dairy Cattle, Samm Piper (12) ranked in Group 1 for Nursery and Landscape, and Davey Ernster (11) ranked in Group 1 for Nursery and Landscape. These placements show the level of practice and effort each of these students put into their studies to become the next generation of the Future Farmers of America.

FFA’s next scheduled event is the FFA Banquet, set for Friday, April 3 at 7 PM.