On Wednesday, February 6th, 2019, 21 members of the Atlantic FFA chapter competed in the Sub District Career Development Events with three advancing to District FFA Convention. FFA member Carli Henderson competed in the Job Interview category placing 1st earning a Gold and advancing to Districts. Tyler Comes competed in Extemporaneous Speaking earning a Silver placing 3rd and advancing to Districts. Bryan York competed in the FFA Creed Speaking CDE placing 3rd earning a Gold and advancing to Districts. Katie York competed in the Public Speaking CDE placing 4th earning a Silver and will be the alternate to Districts. Tate Den Beste competed in Ag Broadcasting earning a Silver placed 5th.

Bryan York FFA Creed

Tate Den Beste Ag Broadcasting

Katie York Public Speaking

Tyler Comes Extempt

Carli Henderson Job Interview

The Conduct of meetings team of Garrett Reynolds, Alyssa Derby, Skyler Handlos, Aspen Niklasen, Drey Newell, Taylor McCreedy, and Hannah Carlson placed 5th earning a Silver. Craig Becker competed in the Ag Sales CDE placing 5th earning a Silver. In the Farm Business Management Test Atlantic FFA had 2 members compete, Nathan Behrends and Drey Newell. Behrends placed 1st and Newell was 2nd.

In the FFA Freshman Greenhand Quiz, Atlantic FFA had 9 members participate. Andrew Engler placed 1st overall, Bryan York placed 8th and Aspen Niklasen placed 9th. Cooper Jipsen, Drew Skartvedt, Logan Eilts, Malena Woodward, Torie Steinhoff and Wyatt Redinbaugh also competed in the test and all placed with a Gold or Silver rating.

FFA advisor Eric Miller commented, “I was proud of all the hard work each member put into preparing for their event.”

Atlantic FFA Director Eric Miller reports that on February 6th 2019, six members of the Atlantic FFA Chapter participated in a variety of events at the Southwest District FFA Review night at Boyer Valley High School. Tyler Comes and Nathan Behrends had their Iowa FFA Degrees reviewed by a team of FFA Advisors. In order to receive this prestigious awards, FFA members must complete all of the following: be an FFA member for two years, complete two years of high school, invested at least $1,500 in their SAE or 300 hours in excess to class time work or a combo of the two.  Recipients must have committed 25 years to community service, performed 10 procedures of parliamentary procedure, given a six-minute speech relating to agriculture, served as an officer or other satisfactory position held by chapter, and had a strong enough school record, as deemed by their superintendent or principal. Both Comes and Behrends applications passed and they will receive their Iowa FFA Degree during the final session at the Iowa FFA Leadership Conference at Ames in April.

Tyler Comes and Taylor McCreedy applied for FFA Proficiency awards this year. Tyler’s proficiency area of Beef Production – Entrepreneurship earned a Gold and advanced to State. Tyler has a cow calf operation that he began in 8th grade and has continued throughout high school. Taylor’s Equine Science – Entrepreneurship earned a Silver and also advanced to State. Taylor has taken her love of animals and turned her passion into an opportunity to work with others as she trainers horses. Proficiency Award nominees have excelled in their Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) Programs. These awards encourage members to develop specialized skills that will apply toward a future career. The district winners will advance to the State FFA competition where they will compete against winners from the other FFA Districts in Iowa.

The last part of Review Night is the District FFA Officer Interviews. This year Atlantic FFA had 3 members apply for the 2019-20 District FFA Officer team. Juniors Adriana Mendez, Corri Pelzer, and Tate Den Beste began the night with an FFA knowledge test. After waiting in the holding room with other candidates from various schools. The candidates then had an individual interview with the seven member nominating committee. The committee asked each candidate a few questions. Then the candidates had a one on one interview with four members of the committee. Each one-on-one interview was only one minute, so the candidate had to think on their feet.

After all the candidates were done the committee met and selected the ballot for the 2019 District FFA Convention. Adriana Mendez was balloted for the District FFA Reporter and Corri Pelzer was balloted for the District Sentinel. Adriana and Corri will each give a speech and answer 2 questions in front of the District FFA Delegates on Saturday March 2nd in Glenwood.