Grassland FFA

Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve

Christmas Update :)

on December 23, 2015

Merry Christmas! The Grassland FFA Chapter has been up to some pretty cool things lately but we have been a bit behind in updating our blog! So here is some updates with pictures to follow at a later date.

1. We’ve elected a new officer team! Congratulations to:

President – William Horning
Vice President – Sarah Eberly
Treasurer – Ashley Berrier
Secretary – Samantha Eberly
Reporter – Sarah Shirk
Historian – Morgan Gooch
Sentinel – Heather Zeiset

2. We will be having a great celebration during the Mid Winter Convention (1/11 at the Farm Show) when Grassland FFA gets recognized for the following Keystone Degree Recipients and FFA Alumni Jacket Scholarship Winners:

Jackets :

– Alexandria O’Neill
– Jacob Vickers
– Leah Strausser
– Mikayla Horst
– Sarah Shirk
– Shawn Zimmerman

Keystones:

Emily Wilson
– Bria Taylor
– Beth Horning
– Elizabeth Mumma
– KiKi Wallick
– Natalie Sweigart
– Elliott Bollinger
– Aaron Weber
– Allyssa Griest

3. A huge congratulations to William Horning for winning a National FFA SAE (Supervised Agricultural Experience) Grants. William will receive a $1,000 grant toward his SAE project: re-bailing large hay bales into smaller square hay bales.

4. We had an amazing faculty luncheon on 12/3. The students brought in lasagna, garlic bread, salad and desserts for a delicious meal. We were able to serve faculty and staff from GSMS and GSHS during all the lunches. It was a great chance for everyone to get a good homemade meal and have time to catch up! Grassland FFA is very thankful for all of the support we receive from the school and love showing our thanks through this meal each year!

5. We are selling t-shirts and sweatshirts and still have some available if you are interested! Just contact Mrs. Drzal (heather_drzal@elanco.org). Tshirts are $12 and Sweatshirts are $20.

6. We had a very successful trip to the Fall CDEs (Career Development Events). Here are the results from the Fall CDEs! We took an awesome group of students to the Lebanon Fair Expo on Nov 10th to compete in various CDEs. Congrats to all participants!

The first number listed is their placing overall and the second number listed is their placing in Lancaster County.

Horse Judging
– Sami Eberly – 60, 21
– Bria Taylor – 66, 25
– Michaiah Messner – 73, 29
– Sarah Eberly – 91, 37

Interview
– Morgan Gooch – 12

Dairy Judging
– Roy Bramm – 9, 3
– Jere Ringler – 39, 10
– Willoh Robbins – 87, 28
– Josh Lehman – 114, 34

Land Judging
– William Horning – 2, 1
– Grant Sauder – 3, 2

Nursery Landscape
– Austin Weaver – 14

Forestry
– Noah Good – 3, 1
– Dan Styer – 16, 5
– Natalie Eberly – 25, 7
– Jake Graybill – 26, 8
– Adam Weber – 35, 11

Aquatics

– Brina Martin – 14, 2
– Heather Zeiset – 37, 3

7. We had a very successful fruit and ButterBraid sale this year! Thank you to all whom participated! We even were able to donate fruit to the Welsh Mountain Retirement Community and New Holland Food Bank! Grassland FFA loves to give back to the community for all of the support for our program and we were very excited to be able to do this. We also enjoyed being able to pass out fruit to everyone who helps to keep our school running! We are very thankful for their support of our chapter.

8. We are having our annual chapter Christmas Party today during iSpartan. We are very excited for 50 members to come and join us for fellowship, food and fun! There will be pizza, snacks, cookie decorating, Christmas gift passing and a scavenger hunt!

9. Thank you to everyone whom came out and supported us during our chicken BBQ sale in September! It was a great fundraiser and the Grassland FFA members had a lot of fun organizing it and cooking chicken!

10. The annual New Holland Fair Tractor Driving Competition took place in October. Despite the cold rainy weather the students still came out and did their best! Thank you to all the volunteers (Mr. Lauffer, Mr. Shirk, Mr. Stoltzfus, Mr. Day and Mr. Frederick) who came out to help make this even successful!

– 1st Will Horning
– 2nd Roy Bramm
– 3rd Thomas Young
– 4th Grant Sauder
– 5th Austin Weaver
– 6th Brian Beck
– 7th Jere Ringler

11. The annual New Holland Goat Show Participants did a great job in October as well! Congratulations to our two FFA members for all their hard work and dedication to their goats! Thank you also to all of the buyers for helping make the students end on a successful note!
– Samantha Shirk for taking first in her class
– Sarah Shirk for taking second in her class
– Samantha Shirk for receiving Grand Champion Market Goat
– Samantha Shirk for getting 1st in showmanship in the senior class
– Sarah Shirk for getting 2nd in showmanship in the senior class

12. William Horning, Bria Taylor, Jared Weaver and Alex O’Neil had the opportunity to attend Fall Leadership Conference in October. They had a great time and learned a lot about being great leaders in our FFA chapter.

13. Congratulations to all the freshman who participated in the Greenhand Livestock Judging Competition at the Manheim Fair. This was the first time many of the students have ever judged livestock and they did great! Ribbons were awarded to the top 10 students from our chapter.
– 1st – Natalie Eberly
– 2nd – Carter Combs
– 3rd – Camryn Reppert
– 4th – Shawn Zimmerman
– 5th – Mikayla Horst
– 6th – Daisy Reiff
– 7th – Alexandria O’Neil
– 8th – Megan Gockley
– 9th – Scott Patton
– 10th – Sarah Shirk

Congratulations also to all the tractor drivers who participated in the county tractor driving competition at the Manheim fair. The competition was tough and they did great!

– Roy Bramm for getting 1st place in the Junior class
– Grant Sauder for getting 5th place in the Senior class

12. During the annual FFA Trapshoot we had 4 Grassland FFA members participate. They had fun and did a great job! Noah Good placed 10th overall and Jacob Good placed 8th!

13. On October 9th we had a great visit from the PA FFA State Officers. They got to work with every class and the Grassland FFA members enjoyed working with them and getting time to talk with them during a pizza lunch!

14. Miss Tressler and Mrs. Drzal participated in the annual Halloween Dress Up Contest with the Science Department. They were excited to help the Science Department bring home a win with our footie pajama costumes 🙂

15. The Leadership Class held a great school wide canned food drive to help support Petra Church. They were able to donate over 100 cans of food to the Petra Food Bank! The students had a great time learning about the leadership behind organizing major events and also taking a tour of the food bank.

16. 9 members of the Grassland FFA chapter will be traveling for an educational trip to Disney World in February! Check back later to see all the great things they learned about animal science and leadership while there!


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *