Throughout the year, FFA has had many challenges. The organization started the year with temporary sponsors, and almost didn’t get to have a group. However, the organization has turned the year around, and planned a week full of games to participate in national FFA week.
“This week took quite a bit of planning,” FFA president Emily Miser said. “We made a committee and spent quite a bit of time figuring out what we wanted to do for dress-up days and activities.”
So far, the FFA group held games during seminar time, which included the watermelon crawl, and barrel racing. For the watermelon crawl, one student from each class participated, and were blindfolded. After they were blindfolded, the students had to listen to their peers, who were standing around the court, to get directions to find the watermelons.
The next day, two students from each class participated in the barrel racing game. FFA members set up three chairs on each side of the court to be the barrels. Two students from each class piggyback raced around the chairs.
“I was most excited for the watermelon crawl because we hadn’t done it since my freshman year, and it is a good team building activity and a good way to get everyone involved,” senior Chayla Owen said.
Since there was no school Monday, students participated in only four dress-up days. Tuesday was Tractor Day (wear your favorite tractor brand), Wednesday was Camouflage Day, Thursday wass Blue and Gold Day, and Friday was Farmer Friday. Many students dressed up throughout the week to show their support for FFA.
Besides the games and dress up days, the group decided to do a school-wide Penny War to raise money for a local family in need. The Penny War was an activity where teachers signed up to enter, and their names were placed on a jar for donations. At the end of the week, whichever teacher had the most money, had to kiss a pig. The winning teacher ended up being Faith Hatcher, a long-term substitute for business classes.
“Kissing the pig was not at the top of my ‘fun things to do’ list, but it wasn’t as bad as everyone thought it was,” Hatcher said. “I grew up a farm kid, so kissing a pig was not entirely out of my comfort zone. It was a great cause and I am happy that I was able to contribute to it!”
Despite the challenges, FFA came together to put this week together. Just before the week started, FFA members received their new shirts, which they designed earlier in the year. The club members wore their shirts on Thursday for Blue and Gold Day.
“I hope that FFA week shows the student body that the organization can be fun when you get involved,” Owen said. “I also hope that more students decide to join FFA next year because of this.”
