by Sarah Knox,
FFA Reporter

 

The 2006 -2007 Rock County FFA officers are: President; Clayton Carpenter, Vice President; Craig Hall, Secretary; Bryant LeZotte, Treasurer; Adam Sawyer, Reporter; Sarah Knox, Sentinal; Tyler Craven, Parliamentarian; Ryan Roggasch and the Jr. Advisor is Dena Dearmont.
The Rock County FFA Chapter has had a busy year thus far. Starting in June with the Ranch Expo the FFA members held a hotdog eating contest, helped auction off a MacDon Swather, and received a new Ag Teacher/FFA Advisor. The Swather was auctioned off by Sandhill’s Equipment for 1000 hours of use. The amount of the winning bid was matched by Sandhill’s and the money was donated to the Rock County FFA Chapter.

 

With school starting the FFA members were treated with pizza and pop at the first meeting. Everyone had a chance to recap on their summer activities and Ms. Hales got a chance to meet all the students. The FFA chapter did many fundraisers this year including; selling roses in September, having a spaghetti supper, running concessions, selling fruit/candles and having a hired hand auction in the spring. They will also be doing a tree/brush clean up in the Nature Trail that runs through parts of Bassett sometime in May. All the money the members earn goes towards FFA conferences the students may attend such as COLT, National and State Conventions, suppers, banquets, contests, donations, and extra fun activities for the members to do.

 

In September the FFA Range Judgers went down to Arthur to participate in the District Contest. Sarah Knox placed 2nd overall while Brian Keck finished 3rd. The team of Sarah Knox, Brian Keck, Tony DeVall and Craig Hall finish 1st overall.

 

The next week 8 members of the range judging team left for Grand Island to participate in the State Range Judging Contest. On Monday afternoon Sarah Knox, Dena Dearmont, Tony Devall, Clayton Carptenter, Brian Keck, Craig Hall, Austin Kroll and Adam Saywer departed from Bassett to go to the state practice site set up south of Aurora, NE. The team of Sarah Knox, Tony Devall, Dena Dearmont and Brian Keck finished 9th out of the 35 teams at the state contest. Finishing in the top 20 was Sarah Knox who placed 16th overall.

 

On Wednesday, October 11th the Rock County FFA sent eighteen students to a pre - district livestock judging clinic at Valentine. Despite the cold north wind blowing in on the students at the Valentine Livestock Market, the students came back with a little more experience under their belts.

 

Catching a ride with the Ainsworth FFA Chapter, Rock County FFA headed out to the District 10 Livestock Judging Clinic on Wednesday, October 18th. In the Senior Division Adam Sawyer lead the way by placing 2nd overall, 1st in the sheep division, 2nd in oral reasons, and 5th in the beef division. Brian Keck also placed 10th overall in the Sheep division.  In the junior division Abby Sybrant was impressive by placing 7th overall out of 120 individuals and 10th overall in the Swine Division.

 

Both the senior and junior teams are alternates to the state contest in March.

 

In December a few FFA members went to Spencer to participate in the LSE contests. Adam Sawyer placed 1st in extemporaneous speaking and the Sr. Parli – Law team received a blue. Other teams were Jr. Parli – Law and we had speakers in the Creed and Public Speaking events.

 

On January 30, 2007 the Rock County FFA had their Proficiency Awards reviewed in Stuart.  We had 9 silvers and 2 golds.  The gold’s went to Duane Harlan and Bret Dearmont. During this time the seniors were also interviewed for their FFA State Degree. The Rock County FFA will have five seniors receiving their State Degrees in March they are; Clayton Carpenter, Tony DeVall, Brian Keck, Sarah Knox and Adam Sawyer.

 

During the week of February 19-23 was National FFA Week. This week is used to celebrate the FFA and it gave the students and faculty a chance to win prizes. For activities we had a scavenger hunt where students had to find out what teacher or faculty member did activities relating to agriculture. For example did you know that Shelly Lukasiewicz was convinced by her grandfather that chocolate milk came from brown cows and white milk from Dairy cows! And that Mr. Fangmeyer worked all over the U.S. putting up pivot irrigation systems. The winners of the scavenger hunt were Brain Keck, Kaylee Leonard, and Dena Dearmont.

 

Another contest was the faculty and students had a chance to guess on the number of beads in a tub. Lana Pfiefer won that contest. Wednesday was official dress day and breakfast was provided for the teachers/staff at the grade school and at the high school. A HUGE thank you to all the mothers who brought food!

 

And finally, a poster/coloring contest was held all week long at the elementary. K-2nd grades colored pictures relating to Agriculture while 3rd-6th grades drew and colored posters. They were all fabulous and very hard to judge by FFA members!  The winners of the poster contest were as following:  Kindergarden, Byron Pfister, 1st grade Byron Pfister, 2nd grade Jadyn Bussinger, 3rd grade Jayde Shankland, 4th grade Andrew Hollenbeck, 5th Saresse Clay, and 6th grade Bradley Frederick.  An overall winner was decided and that went to Andrew Hollenbeck.

 

On February 28th, twenty seven FFA students made the journey to Norfolk to participate in the CDE (Career Development Events). These events are based on the actual classes and information the FFA students have been taught in their Agriculture Classes and from experience. Some of the students have had four years of learning their contest material while others have just started.

 

The Livestock management team of Clayton Carpenter, Sarah Knox, Adam Sawyer, Tony DeVall, Kendra Cornell and Alyx Freidrich impressively finished 3rd overall and won the Dairy Division. This contest consists of Beef, Swine, Sheep, Horse, Poultry and Dairy divisions.

 

Another team that finished well was the Agri-Science team of Abby Sybrant, Danielle Morton, Ethan Steinhauser, and Josh Severin. This team finished 4th overall and were only 10 points from first place. This contest was not a state qualifying contest, but they will have the opportunity to take another test at the State level on March 29th during the State Convention. All participants in this event must either be a freshmen or sophomore and taking their first year of Agriculture.

 

Other students that participated were Brian Keck, Craig Hall, Duane Harlan, Cole Fox, Bryant LeZotte (Envirothon team); Molly Mangelsen, Dena Dearmont, Austin Kroll and Andrew Steinhauser (Food Science); Jordan Maurer, Cassie Taylor, Drew Kroll and Whitney Tunink (floriculture) and Tony DeVall, Clayton Carpenter, Tyler Craven and Adam Sawyer (meat evaluation); John Clark and Kaylee Leonard also attended and provided much needed “moral support”!

 

Ms. Hales has been impressed on how the kids have done in all the contests and how much effort they put into the fundraiser events this year. She is looking forward to the State Convention, the Hired Hand Auction on April 16th and the Chapter Banquet on May 7th.

 

At the 2007 State FFA Convention Rock County FFA Members came home with the Agri Science Team placing 5th overall and all individuals receiving purple ribbons. Members on the Team were Abby Sybrant, Ethan Steinhauser, Brady Ammon and Danielle Morton. Abby Sybrant was also the 4th place individual overall. Adam Sawyer came home with silver medal in the Extemporaneous speaking contest at the State Convention. Adam was also one of the five seniors who received their State FFA Degree. The other Seniors were Sarah Knox, Clayton Carpenter, Tony DeVall and Brian Keck.

 

The Rock County FFA would like to thank all the businesses, people in school, and members of the community that have supported us this year, it is really appreciated!