By Dawsyn McDonald
Geneseo FFA Chapter
Throughout the week of February 15-22, the Geneseo FFA Chapter celebrated National FFA Week with a fun-filled week of events, dress-up days, and contests! Each day of the week, students were able to pay $1.00 to wear a hat to school. At the end of the week, this money was donated to Farm Rescue, an organization that aids farmers through their hard times. On Monday, to kick off the celebrations, FFA members promoted a Western Wear dress-up day, where numerous students got out their boots to participate! The Geneseo FFA then had seven members compete in Proficiency Awards on Monday evening. Of these seven members, Joseph Venneberg, Bee Schieder, Bella Bailey, and Griffin DeWolfe placed first in their divisions and will be competing at the District contest next week!
The celebrations continued into Tuesday and Wednesday with a FFA Apparel and Camo dress up days, and two section level competitions on Wednesday night! Four members competed in the Public Speaking leadership development event, and eleven competed in the Vet Science career development event. Camryn Ebert competed in the Creed Speaking division at the public speaking contest, where she was required to memorize and recite the FFA Creed, then answer oral questions related to the meaning of the Creed, and placed third in the varsity division! Dawsyn McDonald competed in the Prepared Speaking portion of the event, which asked her to write and memorize a speech about an issue within the agriculture industry, and also placed third in the varsity division! Austin Pearce and Jaiden Minnaert participated in the Extemporaneous Speaking division, where they had to draw an agricultural related topic, then write and present a speech on that topic within a time limit. Austin placed sixth in the varsity division, and Jaiden placed third in junior varsity!
Both the Greenhand and varsity Vet Science teams also saw great success at the section contest on Wednesday evening, with both placing first! Individually, in the varsity division Annabelle Betcher placed first, Bee Scheider was second, Joseph Venneberg placed third, and Kolby Causemaker placed fifth! In the greenhand division, individually Jacey Gehl placed first, Emilie DeCastecker placed second, Hannah Wildermuth was third, Kali Herberg was fourth, and Maycie Sims placed fifth!
This excitement was followed by another busy day of events on Thursday, with the staff breakfast in the morning and the February Chapter meeting later that evening. In the morning, FFA members made and delivered pancakes, sausage, and drinks to the high school staff to show their appreciation for everything the people around the school do to support the FFA. This was followed by the February chapter meeting, where members competed in numerous Ag Olympics activities including a hay bale toss, hot wing challenge, milk chug, three legged races, and dodgeball!
On Friday, members had the opportunity to drive their tractors or trucks to school! We saw numerous different kinds of vehicles from a wide variety of years. Ag classes then went outside to vote for their favorites in different categories including the cleanest, most field ready, and their personal favorites!
Finally, the Geneseo FFA rounded out National FFA Week with the largest fundraiser of the year, the Alumni Trivia Night! Members set up for the event in the morning, and had spent the weeks prior collecting a variety of donations from local businesses to be used in both live and silent auctions at the event. The evening included six rounds of trivia, numerous live and silent auctions, and raffles! Over three hundred people attended, making the evening a great success!