Six Panorama High School FFA participants reached their organization’s highest level of membership degree in the state of Iowa earlier this week, and FFA Advisor Evan Babcock says it’s the largest number of students Panorama has had reach the “State FFA Degree” in the last eight years.

Cheyenne Hester, Ryan Gross, Shayna Elliot, Kenzie Fear, Emilie Prince and Amanda Svoboda all received their new degrees Wednesday evening after presenting their latest Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) projects to a panel of state judges.

Babcock explains how his students’ projects are judged using a variety of different skills criteria.

“One of the biggest things that is important to me is just being able to take a project, stick with with it, finish it and (handle) the responsibility that comes with it.  We also want to see specific skills like maybe how to protect the proper seeds for your zone or your garden, when do you start these seeds, how do you identify the problem insects in your garden… so we have a lot of specific skills for every kid’s project, but with every kid we’re out there looking for responsibility, good record-keeping and accuracy.”

To reach “State FFA” membership status, Babcock says participants must have at least two years of experiences kept on file before they can apply to advance beyond “Chapter” membership.  Once students earn their state membership, they have the opportunity to apply for the “American FFA Degree” after they complete high school. The national degree is FFA’s highest membership level.

Babcock adds that he’s proud of the six aforementioned FFAers for their hard work, and he looks forward to helping more Panorama FFAers reach the state degree in the years ahead.