In the Classroom

Miss Thompson's Animal Science class took advantage of the nice weather and put their artistic abilities to the test. The class, which has been studying dairy cattle evaluation, decorated the sidewalks around the ag building by drawing and labeling the parts of a cow.





Meanwhile, Mr. Schmitz's Ag Structures class has put the hammer down to finish a chicken coop. The class focuses mainly building wood projects.

Greenhand Conference

Students from Mr. Schmitz's and Miss Thompson's AgriScience classes attended the Northeast District Greenhand Conference in St. Mary's on Sept. 22. These students participated in workshops facilitated by district, state and national officers and agricultural educators. The greenhands also took an FFA information test in which Jessica Neibling placed 3rd overall out of nearly 350 students.

FFA Tailgate

Doniphan West FFA hosted its annual Tailgate fundraiser on Friday, Sept. 17 at the South Campus. The Tailgate coincided with the DWHS football home-opener against Atchison County Community High School. Although the football team did not fair as well, the FFA had a great start to the year. The meal for the evening included hamburgers, homemade french fries, baked beans, coleslaw and cookies. With the help of all of our FFA members and some generous parents and community members, the chapter will have the means to help fund FFA activities throughout the year.

Keaton Blevins Explains CDE's

CDEs stand for Career Devlopment Events. These are a major part of the FFA. They help to train students for skills they may need when they join the work force. Students prepare for many weeks for these events. Most contests are an identification type that include some kind of a written exam as well. For example: One of my favorite contests is the nursery and landscape. This contest includes around seventy plants to identify, a written test, and a landscape drawing interpretation.

A list of Career Development Events offered in the Northeast District are:

-Ag Communications

-Ag Issues

-Ag Mechanics

-Ag Sales

-Creed Speaking

-Dairy Cattle Evaluation

-Dairy Foods

-Extemporaneous Public Speaking

-Floriculture

-Food Science

-Horse Evaluation

-Job Interview

-Livestock Evaluation

-Meats

-Nursery/Landscape

-Parliamentary Procedure

-Poultry Evaluation

-Public Speaking

Getting to Know the Officers

The 2010-2011 FFA officers have taken a few minutes out of their busy schedule to write down a few things you might not know about them.

Click here to learn more about our D-West Officer team.

An exciting and busy summer for D-West FFA

This summer was very eventful for our FFA chapter. We attended state convention as we do every year, but this year we walked away with more hardware. There were seven individuals that achieved their state degree. Those members receiving their state degree were Robyn Boos, Brennan Davis, Nick Johnson, Lindsay Libel, Kayla Schmitz, Chris Simmons and Josh Van Laar.

Kayla Schmitz also won Kansas State Star in Agribusiness for the work she has done with her turfgrass SAE, Schmitz Lawn Care.

Kayla Schmitz and Lisa Scholz received FFA scholarships and Jacob Simmons won the Kansas Agri-entrepreneurship award.

Additionally, Brennan Davis and Kayla Schmitz each won a state proficiency award.

In the National Chapter competition, our chapter brought home placed in the Silver Division in Community and Chapter Development and a Gold in Student Development.

For the first time in many years we had our Par-Law team qualify for the state competition.

After State convention Mackenzie Cunningham and Valerie Neibling attended Washington Leadership Conference in Washington D.C. with Miss Thompson.

To conclude our summer, our officer team went on a team building trip to the Elk River were we worked on our Program of Activities, canoed, played volleyball and did many other camping related activities.

As you can see, Doniphan West had an exciting and productive summer. As the chapter president, it is my hope that our progress continues into this school year. Be sure to check back often for more updates from the Doniphan West FFA Chapter.

Josh Van Laar
Doniphan West FFA President