Charles City FFA students earn medals at sub-district contests

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Members of the Charles City FFA brought home some hardware last Thursday in the form of medals from the Northeast Sub District Leadership Contests at St. Ansgar School.

Students representing FFA chapters from 10 schools competed for the opportunity to advance to district and state levels of competition in various leadership events.

Charles City FFA Results:
• Parliamentary Procedure (Maggie Boss, Madi Haus, Olivia Kreger, Taylor Quade, and Lauren Staudt) – Gold, advanced to districts
• Chapter Program (Josette Benning and Jada Litterer) Gold, advanced to districts
• Conduct of Meetings (Anya Ruzicka, Quinn Heidebrink, Alex Wright, Abby Assink, Isabelle Vance, Brayden Ellis, and Payton Hadley) – Gold, advanced to districts
• Olivia Litterer, Ag Sales – Gold, advanced to districts
• Natalie White, Ag Broadcasting – Gold, advanced to districts
• Maya Bruening, Job Interview – Gold, alternate to districts
• Shea Bell, Public Speaking – Silver, alternate to districts
• Brayton Quade, Extemporaneous Speaking – Silver
• Brooklyn Moliter, Creed Speaking – Bronze

Individuals and teams advancing will compete in the North Central Leadership contest which will be held on Saturday, March 5, at Belmond Schools in Belmond. Top participants from the North Central District competition will compete at the State FFA Leadership Conference scheduled at ISU in Ames on April 10-12.

FFA chapters/schools in the northeast sub-district are Charles City, Hampton, Nashua-Plainfield, North Butler, Northwood, Osage, Riceville, Rockford, St. Ansgar and West Fork at Sheffield.

Additionally, on Saturday three Charles City FFA students received state proficiency awards.

Justin Heyer earned First Place Gold and advanced to nationals in the Turfgrass Management Proficiency area; Brady Frascht earned First Place Gold and advanced to nationals in the Beef Production Entrepreneurship Proficiency area and Drew Staudt earned state runner-up gold in the Diversified Agricultural Production Area.

Agricultural Proficiency Awards honor FFA members who, through their Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) programs have developed specialized skills that they can apply toward their future careers.

Students with at least one full calendar year of SAE records, but not older than their first year of membership after high school graduation, are eligible to compete. Students can compete for awards in more than 40 areas such as agricultural communications, diversified agriculture, nursery operations and wildlife management.

Recognition of the top two members in each respective area occurs as part of the Iowa FFA Leadership Conference each April.

As part of the National FFA Proficiency Awards program, applications are submitted for judging and the top four national finalists are announced. The national finalists participate and interview at the National FFA Convention & Expo where the finalists are recognized on stage and an overall winner is announced.