AMBOY – Each year the Amboy High School Honors Night sees multiple kids awarded and recognized for all of their hard work whether it’s by receiving an award or a college scholarship.

The event on Thursday, May 16 was no different, especially for FFA students.

Students in the National FFA Organization program at AHS continue to excel and succeed under the guidance of Joseph Heavner.

When he came up to the podium to speak this year, he had many names and teams to discuss.

Here are all of the details of what the FFA students were able to do this year:

State proficiency award winner: Natalie Pratt

Natalie maintained a supervised agricultural experience (SAE) or more commonly called a record book, on her work with the Lee Co Fair, AgView FS, and the Illinois Farm Bureau. Her responsibilities included running their social media pages and creating content for them. She interviewed about her project with a panel of adult volunteers, and at each level (section, district, state) she was chosen as the winner. National judging will take place this summer. 

State FFA Degree Recipients

Natalie Pratt and Brysen Full both received their state FFA degrees this year. To receive the degree a member must maintain a high GPA, perform 25+ hours of community service, take two years of ag classes & be a FFA member for 2 years, and maintain a record book project for 2+ years. It is the highest degree of membership a member may earn while in high school, and I would compare it to someone earning an eagle scout badge (as far as the weight it carries on resumes). 

Amboy FFA Alumni scholarship winner & Amboy DEKALB award winner: Emma Dinges

Emma was chosen as the Amboy FFA Alumni scholarship winner this year, and the DEKALB award winner (FFA advisor gets to nominate one member each year, it is like the MVP award) for the same reasons. She has been very involved in the Amboy FFA since her freshmen year, she was the chapter president this year, she was the section 2 president this year, and she does an overall outstanding job with her FFA responsibilities. 

Section 2 FFA officer team

Section 2 is made up of the following schools: AFC, Amboy, Byron, Chadwick-Milledgeville, Fulton, Lamoille, Morrison, Oregon, Polo, Prophetstown, Rochelle, Sterling, Stillman Valley, and new for 24-25 school year Dixon. 
A team of 6 officers is elected each year from those schools to help run section level events. For the third year in a row, Amboy will have 3 members on that team. They are Natalie Pratt = President, Brysen Full = Vice President, and Grace Althaus = Treasurer. 

State FFA Parliamentary Procedure team

Kenley Wilson, Natalie Pratt, Brysen Full, Emma Dinges, Grace Althaus, Tyler Huggins, and Anna Carlson were our parliamentary procedure team members this year. Beginning in February, they were practicing 3 times a week in the mornings before school. The contest requires members to demonstrate parliamentary procedure motions & carry out debates on a topic that is unknown to them until 1 minute before their presentation. Out of 372 chapters in the state, they placed 4th this year. 

Conduct of Chapter Meetings Team

Lili Leffelman, Westin Wittenauer, Maddie Althaus, Chase Huggins, Tanner Welch, Jake Dinges, and Logan Ketchum made up the COCM team. It is very similar to the parliamentary procedure event, they must demonstrate motions/debates on an unknown topic, but they must also begin and end their presentation with the opening ceremonies and closing ceremonies of the FFA. This team placed 3rd at the state contest this year. 

Other section 2 level events/contests

3rd place team at dairy livestock judging

1st place team greenhand quizbowl

1st place team conduct of chapter meetings

1st place team parliamentary procedure

1st place creed speaking contest - Jake Dinges

1st place extemporaneous speaking contest - Natalie Pratt

3rd place prepared public speaking - Emma Dinges

5th place prepared public speaking - Grace Althaus

3rd place team dairy foods contest

1st place team section agronomy contest

1st place team ag sales contest

1st place team section land use contest

National Chapter Award

The national chapter award is sponsored by the National FFA Organization, and to compete, chapters must write a summary, in great detail, about 9 activities they performed throughout a year. Our officer team put a lot of effort into the application this year, and at the state judging chapters are awarded bronze, silver, or gold. This year we were one of the 48 chapters to receive a gold rating overall, so that puts us in approximately the top 10-15% of chapters for this particular award.