AMBOY – Some clubs or groups operate on seasons.

Some parts of the year they’re very active and other parts of the year members are involved in other groups or focusing on other endeavors.

FFA members seem to have all of their attention on agriculture and the vast world around surrounding, all year long.

Here are some of the Amboy High School FFA activities since February.

FFA week

The National FFA Week, which was February 15-22, is usually busy from year to year. However, this year, the week was kicked into overdrive with a few extra activities.

“It’s great to have them involved as much as they are. For all of the years I’ve been at Amboy High School, we’ve had an active FFA week,” said Joe Heavner, AHS agriculture teacher and FFA co-advisor with Lexi Hilliker. “The Proficiency Award event we had during FFA Week was postponed from its original date due to the weather. It wasn’t going to be during the week, but since it was moved, FFA Week was even more eventful.”

The Proficiency Award event will have its own section after FFA Week, so let’s find out what the FFA members did during their national seven days.

Monday, Feb. 15 was a free day due to President’s Day.

The fun kicked off Tuesday, Feb. 16 with a teacher’s appreciation breakfast where the FFA members planned the event with catered food from Sunset Inn. FFA members also made goodie bags, which included a bar of goat milk soap from Amboy FFA Chapter President Brysen Full’s company, SOAP-E-GOAT.

Wednesday, there was an FFA member lunch in the agriculture room to award members for the work they’ve done this far in the school year. Anyone who had participated in at least one FFA event was rewarded with some grub.

“We had 71 students who could have joined us for pizza in the shop,” Heavner said.  That’s a big uptick from last year, which is great. We’re getting more students into the fold.”

Thursday night, the FFA held a line dancing extravaganza at the Lee County Fair Grounds as schools in Amboy’s section, Section II, were invited. Members from six or seven different school’s FFAs attended this first time event.

Before the line dancing, AHS FFA officers read agriculture themed books to Amboy Central School elementary students and presented agriculture to them.

Friday, the agriculture shop turned into a petting zoo and Amboy Central students, per-kindergarten to fifth grade, were able to view or touch the goats, rabbits, baby ducks, chickens, and pig. There was also a tractor outside.

“I have to give a lot of credit to Lexi Hilliker, our other agriculture teacher and FFA advisor at Amboy High School. Going over to Amboy Central to read books was something we hadn’t done in years past, and that was her idea. I think it was well received by the elementary school.

“We got to sprinkle in some new events this year. As busy as it is, this year having a second agriculture teacher has helped share the burden and make it easier to get through our events. Not only for FFA Week, but when we had the lunch and 71 students had participated in an FFA event throughout the school year, which is 20 more than last year, I think it can be attributed to having a second agriculture teacher and all of the work Lexi Hilliker has put in.”

Proficiency Awards

Friday, Feb. 21 didn’t end with cleaning up the petting zoo.

Instead, he was helping FFA members finish their record books. With weather prolonging the Section II Proficiency Awards to Tuesday, Feb. 18, the students only had until midnight Friday to make corrections, adjustments, and add polish before the district event on March 6 at Geneseo High School.

“Proficiency Award is an interview about a student’s supervised agricultural experience, or common term we call it is a record book,” said Heavner, who added the state is split into five districts, with each district being split into five sections. “They’re records the students keep on an agricultural project outside of the classroom. It’s something they start, oftentimes their freshman year of high school, and they keep these records through their senior year and even after they graduate.

“There are some FFA degrees where it’s a requirement to have one of these SAE projects. For instance, to get your chapter, state, or even American FFA degree, you have to have a supervised agricultural experience. For each level of the degree, there are thresholds where you have to earn so many dollars and work so many hours.”

All four of Amboy FFA’s competitors won their interviews during section as Full won small animal production, Natalie Pratt won ag education, Jarrett Althaus won beef entrepreneurship, and Grace Althaus won outside recreation.

At district in Geneseo, Full, Pratt, and Jarrett Althaus won their categories to advance to state, while Grace Althaus finished second.

At state competition March 22 at Mt. Zion High School, Full and Pratt were runner ups, while Jarrett Althaus finished in the top five.

“I think the Proficiency Awards, whether the kid wins or not, is probably one of the most productive FFA events a student can do because of that interview,” said Heavner. “They sit down and interview with a panel of adults, oftentimes it’s one or two agriculture teachers and a couple of alumni volunteers.

“To put yourself in the shoes of a 15-year-old kid that’s getting drilled with questions about their project, that can be intimidating to sit in a 10-15 minute interview with adults. Oftentimes, it’s a high school kid’s first interview experience.

“Regardless of where they go in FFA or how involved they get in FFA, I think that interview experience is one of the best things that FFA has to offer students. They could go do something else outside of agriculture, but with that interview experience, they’re going to have a lot of confidence when they go interview for a scholarship or their first job.”

Parliamentary

Procedure

The Amboy FFA hadn’t had enough of state competition exposure with the proficiency interviews.

The Parliamentary Procedure Team wanted to make a name for itself and it did so.

At the Section 2 Parliamentary Procedure event on Thursday, March 13, Amboy won as a team and had many individuals take top marks.

Tyler Huggins was the first-place chairperson, Logan Ketchum was the first-place floor member, Chase Huggins was the second-place floor member, Natalie Pratt was the third-place floor member, Grace Althaus was the fourth-place floor member, and Jake Dinges was the seventh-place floor member.

This advanced them to the District Parliamentary Procedure event on April 2 at Black Hawk East College in Galva.

Once again, the Amboy FFA Parliamentary Procedure Team won the event while Kenley Wilson was first-place chairperson, Tyler Huggins was first-place floor member, Ketchum was second-place floor member, Grace Althaus was third-place floor member, Pratt was seventh-place floor member, and Chase Huggins was ninth-place floor member.

The Illinois FFA State Parliamentary Procedure Leadership Development Event will be held Thursday, May 1 at the Illinois FFA Center in Springfield.