As many of you know, several FFA members are traveling to Indianapolis, Indiana this week for the 96th National FFA Convention. While at the convention, Appomattox FFA will be recognized for having an outstanding program of activities, which includes a series of activities designed to encourage our members to grow as individuals, to work as part of a team, and to serve others. I want to highlight a few of the major experiences that you may want to watch from home or school. All major activities can be viewed online at convention.ffa.org/ffa-live.
- Two students will receive an award for the high school chapter on Thursday afternoon (between ~3:00-4:00 PM). This award will be televised on RFD and broadcast online. They earned 3 out of 3 stars in the Chapter Award contest. Their chapter is among one of the top programs in the United States.
- In June, four of our chapter members were recognized as winning the Agronomy Career Development Event. Niki Ballagh, Tim Henderson, Bruce Jones, and Tyler Martin are on the team. They were fortunate enough to advance to the National championship round of competition. Wednesday is the primary day in which they will be competing. Their awards ceremony will be livestreamed on November 2 at 12:00 PM.
- Lastly, all of our students have work-based learning projects, known as their Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) projects within the agriculture department. The National FFA Organization recognizes students with exemplary SAE projects with Proficiency Awards. Bruce Jones was the State Champion Speciality Crop Production award winner. In August, we found out that he was 1 of 4 students from across the country to be a National Finalist. He competed virtually in September for the top honors. He will be recognized on National television during session 6 on Friday, November 3. We expect him to be on stage around ~7:20-7:45 PM.
If you would like to tune in, RFD-TV has live convention coverage from Wednesday-Saturday this week. On Directv, RFD is on channel 345. On Dish Network, RFD is on channel 231. Don’t forget to set your DVR. Convention highlights can be found at https://convention.ffa.org/ or on the National FFA Organization's Facebook page. For a list of the other convention activities, check out the convention webpage at https://convention.ffa.org/. Many of the national officer retiring addresses would make an excellent video for raider room. We will also be sharing several updates on our FFA social media pages (Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/appoffa/ and Instagram: appomattoxffa).
Thank you for supporting our chapters as we celebrate our national achievements this week with 70,000+ of our closest FFA friends. Our students are participating in the largest youth conference in the world. We hope that it will be a valuable experience. We appreciate our hometown supporters!