The Crookston High School FFA Chapter competed at the Mariucci Arena at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities last weekend. They had sent five of their teams and 26 students to represent Crookston High School and the FFA Region I. The Chapter also applied and was awarded a Gold Ranking for the National Chapter Award and is advancing to the Nationals competition in Indianapolis in late October.
Team and individual results from states:
The Chapter placed among the Top 3 for Models of Innovation for Strengthening Agriculture, being a leader and service as a top-performing MN FFA Chapter, being a New Chapter Charter, and was recognized for more than 100 hours of service
The Landscape, Dairy Judging, Conduct of Chapter Meetings, & The Small Animals Teams took home the Bronze for their competitions.
The Horse Evaluation Team took Gold and placed 23rd out of the entire State, with Naomi Olson placing 11th for her individual performance out of 300 other students.
Joslyn Wallace took Gold for her speech with her Proficiency: Div. Crop project and took home Bronze in Prepared Public Speaking.
Clay Hanson placed 2nd out of the entire State with his Proficiency: Fiber and Oil Crop Production project.
Libby Salentine placed 2nd out of the entire State with her Proficiency: Agricultural Education project.
Addie Schiller took home the Bronze for her Speech in Creed Speaking
Libby Salentine also was nominated to become an AG Ambassador
Chapter Advisor Whitney Rupprecht was also recognized as being the Region I Adult Board Representative on the State Board
The Chapter made a strong presentation for just its second year of existence, and Chapter Advisor Whitney Rupprecht was very pleased with the Chapter’s results. “It’s a huge deal to receive those honors. Let alone, they only have a year-and-a-half of records because that’s about when we started our program, and they were beating out people that have been doing this since 7th grade and are now seniors,” FFA Chapter Advisor Whitney Rupprecht explained. Rupprecht mainly gave special attention to the individual students that placed high at the Convention, such as Naomi Olson, Libby Salentine, and Clay Hanson, as they were among the top students out of a large pool of students that qualified for State. “FFA’s a little bit different from things like sports team events and competitions. Instead of competing against ten teams, they’re competing against 300 to 400 individuals, so it’s a huge accomplishment even to get where we’re at today,” Rupprecht explained.
This is the last major event for the school’s FFA Chapter, but they have one final event for the year with their Advisor, Whitney Rupprecht, who’s chosen to leave CHS to be with her family and focus on photography. The final event for the school’s FFA Chapter will be their end-of-year banquet taking place sometime in May. Afterwards, the school will be conducting officer interviews for their next FFA Chapter Advisor but has currently chosen Carolyn Pablish.
Pictures of the Chapter’s teams and students’ placings and some of the highlights of their trip can be seen below.
