By: Emma Horstman, Paulding FFA Reporter
The Paulding FFA Chapter was established in 1929 being one of the oldest chapters in the state of Ohio. Throughout its history the FFA Chapter has had many students go on to pursue careers in agriculture. Currently, the Paulding FFA Chapter has over 95 members. The Chapter is lead by the officer team. This year the officer team consists of 8 officers with 2 FFA advisors. They are as follows: President Kalyn Strahley, Vice President Austin Howell, Secretary Courtney Luderman, Treasurer Kaylie Tressler, News Reporter Emma Horstman, Sentinel Abbie McMichael, Student Advisor Shannon Hale, and Parliamentarian, Riley Noffsinger. The chapter advisors are Mrs. Staci Miller, Agriculture Education teacher and advisor along with Mr. Patrick Troyer advisor.
Our chapter participates many of the Career Development Events that are offered by Ohio FFA. These events include, Parliamentary Procedure, Food Science, Job Interview, Milk Quality, Poultry Judging, General Livestock, Agriculture Sales, Ag Communications, and Soil Judging as well as many more. This year the Food Science team placed 1st at Districts and advanced onto the state contest. Recently, the Agriculture Communication team placed 1st in the district with their women in agriculture topic and they will compete at state on February 10th. Also earlier in the year the poultry team placed 3rd in the State and competed in the National Big E Competition placing 1st. The Paulding FFA enjoys seeing its members get involved in the career development events and taking their knowledge learned in the classroom and applying it to the various contests.
During the FFA National Convention held in Indianapolis at the end of October the Paulding FFA had two members receive their American FFA degree. The American FFA degree is the highest FFA degree a member can receive. This year Luke Jackson and Alexis Howell were honored with the gold key of the American FFA degree.
The Paulding FFA Alumni Chapter is very active with us and teams up with our chapter during different events throughout the year. The Paulding FFA Alumni runs a sausage stand during the Paulding County Fair, and during the county’s Flat Rock Fall Festival. Our members volunteer and help out during these events. These funds raised are used for our scholarship fund, to help send members to National and State Convention, as well as CDE competitions. The chapter has a greenhouse were the greenhouse class prepares vegetables, and other various plants to sell at our annual plant sale in the spring. The Alumni helps with this by volunteering to run the sale as well as help provide the necessities to make this happen. The Paulding FFA chapters appreciates all the support and guidance given by the FFA Alumni Chapter.
Our has two major fundraisers that help raise funds for our chapter. In the fall, we sell citrus fruit, BBQ sauce, Ohio apples and butter braids and in the spring, we sell fresh strawberries. These fundraiser allow our chapter to participate in the many different contests as well as give back to our local community.
Community service is very important to the Paulding FFA Chapter. Throughout the year the chapter volunteers a large amount of time in our community. They help with the Habitat for Humanity 5k run as course marshalls. We adopt a few families for Christmas and go shopping to ensure that children had a little bit brighter of a Christmas. We also volunteer as bell ringers for the Salvation Army. We also help out with Relay for Life and various other community service projects.
Lastly, every spring the chapter holds a petting zoo and host our Annual Greenhouse Plant sale. During the petting zoo members bring in their animals for a day so that the elementary students and staff can learn about livestock with a hands on experience. We have goats, chickens, sheep, cows, donkeys, rabbits, and much more. Our goal for our petting zoo is to raise awareness about agriculture and livestock right here in our county. During our Annual greenhouse plant sale the greenhouse classes will start planting and raising a variety of different vegetables, herbs and flowers that will be available for sale to the public beginning in early May.
This year the chapter’s banquet theme is, Learning From Our Past, to Succeed in Our Future. The Annual FFA banquet is set for Saturday, April 14th. The chapter hopes to carry our traditions and learn from past members to help us move forward stronger each year.
–The Paulding FFA Chapter as well as the Paulding FFA Officer Team
