By Sam Cibulski
Staff Writer
The end of the school year usually means things are finally wrapping up for students and staff, but for Northwoods Agriculture (Ag) and FFA department, the fun stuff is just getting started.
Summer means one thing for Ag students all over the country: competition. All year long, students train and study for an opportunity to compete in a wide variety of events from Nursery Landscaping to Dairy Judging to Public Speaking. Each event is wildly different, and takes copious preparation to organize. Ag Advisors, Laura Smith and Lindsay Davis, make quizzes, hold in-school study groups and even make matching uniforms for teams to wear.
“[Preparation] all looks different because all of our events are pretty different. We sit down together, study as often as everyone is available, sometimes that’s during school, sometimes that’s after school,” Smith said. “We’ve already had two teams go straight to the state level and that was Farm Business Management and Dairy Judging. Farm Business is all written exams and basically accounting for a farm, versus Dairy Judging where they’re actually judging live cows, so we try to get on farms to prepare.”
For horticultural events and some Leadership Development Events (LDE’s), students must compete at a Regional Rally first, North Carolina is split into 10 different regions, with NHS competing in the West Central Region. This year, Northwood took teams competing in Introduction to Horticulture, Floriculture and Nursery Landscaping. Each team that competed at Regionals placed in the top three and are all advancing to the state level.
“[Horticulture events] would be like Plant Identification, some multiple choice questions and different practicums for each of those specific events,” Smith said, “Between Ms. Davis and I, we’re taking 6 different teams to State Convention.”
State level competitions are held throughout the year, but the largest convention is in the summer. The North Carolina FFA State Convention is held in late June or early July, and consists of the assorted Leadership and Career Development Events (LDE’s and CDE’s) that don’t finish competing during the school year. Aside from competitions, there is shopping, food, and educational booths of all kinds for competitors and teachers to enjoy. More than 3,000 students and teachers from all over the state pack into the Raleigh Convention center for a weekend of fun and connection from Alamance county to Yancey.
“My favorite part was when there was a state officer doing her retiring speech,” junior Jack Diprofio shared, “I also really enjoy getting dressed up in official dress and seeing everyone else get dressed up.”
Through FFA, students acquire various amounts of practical life skills as well as knowledge gained through individual events. Public speaking events like Extemporaneous Speaking or Creed Speaking foster confidence within students and help them expound upon their public speaking and leadership qualities while specialized events like Nursery Landscaping or Milk Quality allow students to further develop their interests in small, specific areas of agriculture.
“In Nursery Landscape, my team placed first. We came during homeroom and in our extra free time to look over Plant ID and knowledge tests,” senior Holly Thesing said. “I do really enjoy just looking at the plants and getting to test my knowledge, [along with] just getting to spend time with my friends and compete one last time in my last FFA competition.”
Win or lose, all students have a chance to grow in Northwood’s FFA.
