First year members of the Grassland FFA chapter, aka Greenhands, have participated in many events during the first semester.
New members has a chance to meet one another and the officer team at a Freshman Kick-Off event. Food, games, team building and fun highlighted the event which was held at Bethany Grace Church due to inclement weather.
New members had the chance to dive right into their FFA careers as they participate in a whipped cream pie eating contest.
Greenhand Retreat
As an incentive to learn the material necessary to earn their Greenhand Degree new members were able to earn an expense free retreat at Refreshing Mountain Camp. Members who qualified planned their own meals, cooked over camp stoves and a campfire and enjoyed a great weekend of fun and learning to be a cohesive team. A highlight was going through a low ropes team building activity with the RMC staff. Six officers joined the freshman for the weekend to assist Mr. Lauffer and Mrs. Marchini the FFA advisor
Some of this year’s Greehands at the Retreat.
Paul McFarland, President and Michael Seifrit, Vice-President, were among the officers who gave up their weekend to help the Greenhands get off to a good start. Also assisting were Josh Weaver, Percella Hankins, and Heather Musser
Manheim Fair Livestock and Dairy Judging Competition
Freshman also spent a day at the Manheim Fair where they had the chance to judge livestock ad dairy .
Two of the Greenhands had qualified for the Safe Tractor Operations competition with Hira Allen placing 2nd and Wes Weaver 6th in the county. Everyone else had the opportunity to judge two classes of dairy cattle, 2 classes of market hogs, 2 classes of market lambs, a class of market steers and a class of market goats. For those not familiar with judging, a class is a group of four animals which are visually inspected by each contestant and placed into an order based upon their judgment of how well each animal meets the evaluative criteria for that species. An official judge then places the animals in first, second third, and fourth place. In more advanced competitions, the contestants must also present one or more sets of oral reasons to a judge explaining and justifying their choices. Scores are determined by how closely a contestants placing matches that of the official judge.
The results of the judging competition are:
- Chad Zimmerman
- Austin Nolt
- Miguel Bowman
- Nathan McConnell
- Blake Martin
- Mitchell Bair
- Morgan Mueller
- Chase Bowman
- Brody Shrock
- Ben Lehma
Chad Austin Miguel
Nathan Blake
It should be noted the top 3 individuals in the competition all beat their advisor, Mr. Lauffer, who competed along with the students. Which prompted his comment , “ You must always remember the official judge isn’t always correct but they are always official”
Greenhands also had the opportunity to serve as tour guides for the Ag Awareness Day program conducted for 3rd graders in the district. As tour guides they helped the elementary students find their way around a 12 station educational course that included: forestry, IPM, livestock, stream habitat improvement, animal by-products, the connection between wildlife and farm habitat, a career skit, Food for America ( a station where they learned the systems that produce and process their food), experimentation in agriculture, soils and tractor safety. Over 200 3rd graders participated in the day.
9th graders also participated in the Lancaster County Leadership Conference( LCLC). It was held at Lampeter-Strasburg High School. It was conducted by the County FFA representatives from each school including senior Janelle Weaver who represents Garden Spot at the county level. According to Advisor, Bob Lauffer, one of the best elements of the conference was that they split the students up as soon as they hit the door and forced them into interacting with students from other schools. By the end of the evening students had made friends and connected with FFA members from around the county. “
Monday night at a special monthly FFA meeting to which parents were invited, all those who had met all of the requirements for the Greenhand Degree were awarded a pin in recognition of their status. Awards were also presented to deserving members from competitions throughout the fall.
The evening started out with pizza shared around tables with only one or two students from a particular school. While eating their pizza they were given a couple of tasks to solve. They stayed with that group throughout the evening, engaging a series of interactive workshops and skits.
Grassland FFA Advisor, Mrs. Marchini, commented , “When my gang got in the van their first words were when do we get a chance to do something like this again? I guess you could say the conference was a big success. “
Monday night at a special monthly FFA meeting to which parents were invited, all those who had met all of the requirements for the Greenhand Degree were awarded a pin in recognition of their status. Awards were also presented to deserving members from competitions throughout the fall. It has been a busy but rewarding fall for the Grassland FFA’s new members. There is a much more planned as the year progresses.
