Katie Akers is the new Greene County High School FFA Advisor.

She grew up on a farm south of Panora where she raised cattle and horses and developed her passion for agriculture.  That passion continued onto high school at Panorama where she was active in FFA all four years.  She graduated with an agriculture education bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University.

The local FFA chapter recently had their first meeting of the year and close to 50 students signed up as members.  Akers says she’s excited for the mix of new and veteran students that are apart of FFA.  She explains why FFA is so important for student growth.

“FFA offers multiple leaders opportunities.  Just all the different activities that we take our students to do (and) giving them hands-on, real life experiences.  And then the CD’s that we do, the Career Development event, just the leadership skills and the real life skills that the students take away from those, it will impact the rest of their lives.”

Students were already busy this year harvesting tilapia fish from their aquaculture, which will be used for their fish fry next spring and students will continue to run the petting zoo at Deal’s Orchard on October 10th and 11th.

Akers is excited for the year and for more students to join FFA.