LOUDONVILLE, Ohio — Three members of the Loudonville FFA chapter, Tess Schultz, Sidney Portz and Brett Carnegie, competed in the District 2 Sub-District Speaking Competition virtually Feb. 9. All three ranked in the top three of their subdivisions.
Schultz and Portz will be moving on into the district competition. Schultz, a new member and eighth grade student, won the Creed Speaking Competition.
Every member is required to learn the creed their first year of FFA, and every year the first new member to recite it receives a free FFA jacket. Schultz, the first to recite it, memorized the Creed within two weeks and received her free jacket, just in time to perform in this speaking competition.
Portz, a third year member and sophomore, placed second in Beginning Prepared Speaking. Portz spoke about the struggles of the dairy industry and the dramatic decrease of dairy pricing within the past 10 years.
Carnegie, another third year member and sophomore, received third place in the extemporaneous category of the Speaking Competition. This category entails the judges providing 12 topics that the speaking member must research in 30 minutes. Carnegie’s chosen topic was, “Environmentally speaking, what are the most important agricultural innovations in the next 25 years?”
Portz and FFA chapter adviser Kendra Carnegie also delivered handmade Valentine’s Day cards to senior citizens at the McMullen Assisted Living Facility. Portz made the bulk of the cards. While community service opportunities are limited this year due to COVID-19, the chapter hopes to continue this tradition and others once the risks have decreased.
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SULLIVAN, Ohio — Cassidy Mrakuzic, of Black River FFA, has been announced the State Runner Up in the 2021 GROWMARK essay contest for FFA members. The theme of this year’s contest was “If you could invent a new technology to improve agriculture, what would it be?”
Her invention was an app that connects a farmer’s feeders and waterers to their phone. The app would allow the farmer to control things like the water’s temperature, amount of grain fed, what time to feed and more.
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EDON, Ohio — Three members of the Edon FFA chapter competed in the sub-district public speaking contest Jan. 26.
Kendall Siebenaler placed second in the FFA Creed division, where she recited the FFA Creed from memory and answered questions from the judges.
Emma Howard placed first in the Beginning Prepared division with her speech titled, “Cows and Coronavirus,” and Addison Harding placed second in the Advanced Prepared division with her speech titled, “How Do We Save the American Farmer?”
All three qualified for the district competition Feb. 8. At the district contest, Siebenaler placed eighth, Howard placed fifth and Harding placed sixth.
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