West Boyd FFA

The West Boyd FFA Chapter has had a great start to the school year, and there are many events on the horizon. First, the officer team for the 2011-2012 year includes Kristen Reiman as our chapter President, Alix Mashino as Vice President, Alex Bendig as Secretary, Tyler Haun as Treasurer, Joslynn Roth as Reporter, David Engelhaupt as Parliamentarian, Andrew Lechtenberg as Sentinel, Jamie Mashino and Roxana Lechtenberg as Historians, and Eric Lechtenberg as Jr. Advisor. We all attended Chapter Officer Leadership Training (COLT) in Aurora, Nebraska on May 19th through the 21st along with our advisor, Jerome Engelhaupt. It was a very beneficial time for the officer team as we learned more about each other and how to be better leaders for our chapter. Throughout the year, we will be introducing new activities that we learned about at COLT. One major improvement that we have made to our chapter is committees. With these committees we are becoming more involved in the community and running a more productive chapter. We also started this year doing a member meeting each month in the evening.
During the summer each year we have members that participate in a number of activities. This year on July 29th Mr. Engelhaupt took five members to Burwell for Livestock Judging. Afterwards, each of them got to watch the Burwell Rodeo. Each of them had a great time and a great experience. At our Boyd County Fair, a vast majority of members participated in the Livestock Show. We had a great turn out and many members ended up taking home trophies under FFA. Each summer in July, the FFA Officers put on a fun weekend called New Found Leaders (NFL). This is an event that we do to bring together interested and current members to talk about plans for the upcoming year. We usually spend this time at the Ft. Randall Dam. Mr. Engelhaupt brings his boat and other members bring their water toys too! We have a potluck supper that is graciously made by the moms. After supper, we have the traditional banana race where the members are split into teams and they swim out a distance with a banana, come back and pass on the banana to the next member. Finally we end the day with a campfire and games before heading off to our tents for some sleep.

To kick off the school year, the West Boyd FFA Officer team holds Youth Orientation (YO) Camp. This is an event that we host for 7th through 9th graders to increase their interest in FFA. We get the privilege of having some Nebraska State FFA Officers help us out and teach the kids about leadership. Friday night we start with a member meeting and go over items of business to start off the school year. After the meeting, the officers do energizers and give the kids a snack. Finally, the kids grouped up in assigned teams and started the customary scavenger hunt. They all have a lot of fun and each year the winning team earns the traveling trophy. The next morning, the officers wake the kids up and feed them a nutritional breakfast of French toast and fruit. Finally, the officer team conducts closing ceremonies and sends the kids home with more knowledge and excitement about FFA.

For our school’s homecoming, our FFA Chapter holds a BBQ at the football game. Each year we end up with a great profit. All of the members take turns serving food. Also in the fall, we begin range judging and have many members who compete well as individuals and as teams. We also start getting ready for Leadership Skills Events that we compete in December.

Also in the winter, one of our greatest fundraisers is our fruit sales. Each member sells fruit, butter braids, popcorn, peanuts, and this year we are selling our very own West Boyd FFA Cookbook. After fruit sales, we all work together to get the sales together and distribute to the buyers. We all have seller teams that we are on and the top team gets to have a pizza party along with the top individual sellers.

After Christmas break, we are all busily working on proficiencies and getting ready for Career Development Events. All members are strongly encouraged to participate in both of these events. Throughout the years both past and present members have been very successful in these areas.

In March we always plan on the majority of our members participating at the Nebraska State FFA Convention in both competing and in learning more about FFA. Four members even participated at the National level in proficiencies last year. Luke Zeisler, Angela Haun, Kristen Reiman, and Haylie Lechtenberg all had the great opportunity of being national competitors in their proficiency areas. Haylie even received a trip to Costa Rica! Also this year Luke will be again interviewing in the top four at the national competition.

During spring time the officers are busily preparing for the FFA Appreciation Banquet. It is a great time of year to see all of our community that supports us throughout the year. We also award degrees and install the new officer team. Also during the spring, the new officers attend COLT conference to get educated on how to be ready for the next coming year.

The West Boyd FFA members and officers are excited about how great this year has gone and what is yet to come throughout the rest of the year. We are very appreciative of the community support from businesses and parents that continue to help make our chapter successful. Throughout the year we are planning on following our vision statement of “Planting leadership, growing through experience, harvesting success” which is a great part of FFA!