Just this last Sunday was the FFA discussion meeting, in which 18 Lakeland High School students participated.
FFA stands for Future Farmers of America and teaches and prepares students for leadership and careers in the science, business and technology of agriculture.
This discussion meeting is a competitive event that simulates a committee meeting requiring discussion and participation from each competitor. Competitors are judged on the exchange of ideas and information based on a pre-determined topic.
This meeting is very beneficial to FFA members as they build discussion skills, develop an even better understanding of important agricultural issues and explore how they can combine their knowledge to reach a consensus and solve problems.
The 18 students that competed were Teagan Patrick, Madelynn Andres, Lauren Peterson, Addison Forsman, Taylor Howe, Matthew Greene, Zoey Allison, Fancy Bowlsby, Audry Shrodder, Madelynn Bartimioli, Hailey Hamrick, Brooklynn Fletcher, Gage Briggs, Faith Whorton, Emerson Thompson, Charlee Friddle, Zoie Davies and Payton Barker.
Each of them worked very hard, and LHS did well with four finalists.
Matthew Greene, Charlee Friddle, Madelynn Andres and Zoie Davies were all finalists. Matthew Greene was the winner.
This means “Greene will move on to the District competition in Moscow on Jan. 26, where he will compete against 10 other students and hopefully advance to state,” Laura Kelley said.
This is Matthew Greene’s second year competing in the FFA discussion meet.
“I would like to say it is very stressful for people who don’t know what’s going to happen, but doing it a second year-round is much less stressful,” Greene said.
At these meetings, students do not know what is going to be asked of them, and it can be stressful trying to prepare for anything they may ask.
It’s a lot of mental preparation trying to study a lot of information and prepare to talk for almost 20 minutes to a group of people they do not know.
“All the students did a great job,” Kelly said. “I was very happy with their performance and placement.”
