COLUMBUS — Five members of the Miami Trace FFA chapter attended the eighth annual Ohio FFA Legislative Leadership Conference at the Ohio Statehouse Sept. 25. Five members of the Zane Trace FFA chapter officer team also went to the conference, joining more than 200 other FFA members.
Members representing the Miami Trace FFA were Aubrey Schwartz, Morgan Eggleton, Kyler Batson, Shana Lott and Taylor Moore.
The conference included a morning workshop led by the Ohio Farm Bureau focusing on advocating for agricultural education, informing students about important issues and preparing them to speak with legislators.
At the conference, members also toured the Ohio Statehouse, visited Bob Peterson, president pro tempore of the Ohio Senate, heard from Ohio Department of Agriculture Dorothy Pelanda and the Ohio FFA officer team and shared a meal with legislative aides.
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WEST SALEM, Ohio — This year, the Northwestern FFA had many participating members exhibit shop projects and animal projects at the Wayne County Fair. There were nearly 50 shop projects this year displayed at Northwestern’s booth in the FFA building. These projects included medium and large wood projects, welding and electrical projects. There were also concrete projects made by the plant and animal science class.
Many FFA members showed market hogs at the fair. Kade Tegtmeier won a showmanship class, and Colt Slanczka took third place.
Cole Wharton won grand champion Wayne County born and raised beef steer and placed first in his market class.
Riley Stull won her lamb showmanship class and Kendra Marty placed second in her showmanship class.
Marty also won her goat showmanship class and had the grand champion born and raised market goat.
For dairy cattle, Hanna Wilson placed first with her winter yearling and Stull placed first with her Holstein, second with her Ayrshire, first in showmanship and won division reserve champion Holstein. Austin Beegle placed third with his intermediate calf and in showmanship.
Lizzy Howman placed first and second in multiple classes and won reserve champion Swiss. Haley Wilson placed third in showmanship.
Desiree Smith placed third in multiple classes with her rabbit and goose and first and second with her ducks.
Kaitlyn Praisler showed at the Medina County Fair, placing second in multiple horse classes. She also received a gold and bronze medal for her dog.
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SMITHVILLE, Ohio — The Northwestern FFA and Norwayne FFA chapters placed well at the sub-district Soil Judging Contest on Sept. 18,
The Northwestern FFA placed first as a team in both the Urban Soils and Rural Soils judging events. The Norwayne teams took second in both events.
From the Northwestern chapter, Austin Beegle took first place individually; Leeanna Ruegg placed second; Jameson Holtz took third; Alex Borton placed fifth, and Autumn Duncan took sixth place.
In the rural contest, a number of students from the Northwestern chapter competed and placed individually: Kenda Marty took first place; Val Imhoff placed second; Cole Wharton took sixth, and Dugan McLaughlin received 10th place.
From the Norwayne chapter, Tim Gunkelman and Kelsie Mannasmith placed third and fourth, respectively, in the rural contest.
At the district Soil Judging Contest on Sept. 25, Norwayne’s urban soil judging team placed second and the rural team placed first.
Norwayne’s Kelsie Mannasmith came in first place and Grace Gunkelman in second out of 45 FFA members in the rural contest. Shane Simmons came in third in the urban contest.
The top four from each team will go onto the state soil judging contest on Oct. 12.
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NORTH FAIRFIELD, Ohio — On Sept. 24 and 25, seven Western Reserve FFA Greenhands attended greenhand camp held at Camp Conger.
There were four chapters in attendance: Western Reserve, Monroeville, South Central and Mapleton. The Greenhands participated in team-building activities, learning about official dress, metal stamping, woodworking and learning about SAE’s and CDE’s. They also got to meet past state FFA officers and hear from them.
This camp is intended to teach first-year members about all the different activities they can get involved in through FFA.
On Sept. 19, Western Reserve held “drive your tractor it school day” to bring awareness to farm safety week. The Western Reserve preschoolers went out during the day to learn about being safe around tractors and to experience both large and small equipment firsthand.
