Front row: Breanna Pope, Jaelyn Hedges, and Rylan Hostetler Back row: Regan Grow, Emmalin Wright, Austyn Smith, Jennifer Robbins, Dakota Ostrander and Tatum Tucker. Absent is Kai Byerly. Photo courtesy of Steve Kehoe
It is National FFA Week and the Greene County Chapter has lots of members join for a variety of reasons, along with getting ready to implement lots of aesthetic changes around the high school.
Junior Dakota Ostrander serves as the treasurer and she explains that she joined FFA in seventh grade as a way to carry on a family tradition with her older brother and father being involved, but then she really got into it because of all the benefits that the organization allows her to have.
“I’ve learned how to make more friends, and be more talkative, and kind of express my feelings, and tell everybody how I feel. And I’ve also learned a lot about plants and stuff, and animals. And that’s something I want to go into in my future is stuff with animals. So, being in FFA and ag classes also helps people who want to do something with farming or animal science. If you can learn the base of it, just for being in an ag class, and then that’ll help you all the way through your life.”
Freshman member Rylan Hostetler is excited for what they have coming up in the near future that people may see around the high school.
“We’re planting buffer strips around our retention ponds, which according to (Advisor) Mr. (Steve) Kehoe would be a two-three year process after we plant them, getting them to actually look the way we want. And then, we also have someone coming from Iowa State (University) to take a look at the grounds of the high school and possibly look at planting trees.”
President Austyn Smith adds that next month, work will begin on renovating the greenhouse so that they can grow plants and flowers properly and have them to sell for future fundraisers.
Some of the activities that the Greene County FFA Chapter has been involved with this year includes participating in the National Convention, holding a fall fundraiser, some students competed in sub-districts, with more to be included in the district contest, and they are also looking forward to their banquet coming up towards the end of March. To hear more about Greene County FFA from the student members, listen to today’s Let’s Talk Greene County program.