State Proficiency Award Winners

Four students of the Doniphan West FFA Chapter were named Kansas state proficiency award winners. The proficiency awards recognize students' Supervised Agricultural Experience programs. Their applications will now advance on to be judged at the national level.


Brennan Davis - Ag Services
Kayla Schmitz - Diversified Horticulture
Nick Johnson - Forestry Management and Products
Katherine Rush - Vegetable Production

Please congratulate these students if you see them!

Why Robin Thinks You Should Join FFA

On Tuesday, March 8, a select few FFA members went to the Doniphan West Middle School for 8th grade recruitment. For the activity, 8th graders went through four different Career Development Event stations. The stations were:

1. Food Science - students did the triangle test with Cheeze-Its and Soda


2. FFA Information - students answered questions in FFA Jeopardy for prizes


3. Startburst Judging - students placed a "class" of starbursts on placing cards and listened to a set of reasons


4. Horticulture - students learned about cuttings and transplanting, as well as Floriculture ID.

It's important to us and the future of our FFA chapter to get as many members as possible. So here are some reasons why you should join our FFA chapter.

• A great opportunity to meets tons of new people
• It's fun!
• Get to go to National Convention (if you work hard enough)
• Any member can go to state convention in Manhattan, Kansas
• Cool awards
• Gain responsibility
• Learn leadership
• You can get out of school :)
• Awesome ag teachers
• All the different CDE's (contests) you can participate in

FFA isn't just about farming, FFA teaches many things and it is a blast. There are many cool Ag classes available at Doniphan West. Just click on the Doniphan West Agricultural Education link (under Pages here to the right) to view them.

Parents, if you have kids that are going to be in high school next year, definitely encourage them to be in FFA!

Students, some of my most memorable things that happened in high school involved FFA! You won't regret it!

Second Grade Plant Visit

FFA members recently hosted 2nd graders from Mrs. Merkel and Mrs. Dixon's classes to teach them about plants. The 2nd graders were divided into four groups and visited different stations. The high school students were in charge of the four stations - Planting and Cuttings, Soybeans, Parts of a Plant, and Decorating.

At the Planting and Cutting station, Ashley Courtin, Laura Rush, Lacie Diveley and Valerie Neibling taught the kids how to take a cutting from a Wandering Jew and plant it in a cup. They also planted a soybean seed in a cup. The kids got to take home their Wandering Jews, while the high school students will moniter the growth of the soybeans in the greenhouse.

Nick and Maggie Johnson talked to the kids about the many uses of Soybeans at the next station. They also told them about the process of planting and harvesting soybeans.

The kids learned about the basic parts of a plant including the roots, stem, leaves and petals. They wrote the parts down on a coloring sheet that they got to take to their classroom to color. Katie Crandall and Rachel Keller also talked to them about photosynthesis and pollination.

Finally at the decorating station, the 2nd graders were able to decorate their Wandering Jew cup. Taryn Gibson, Stephanie Scales and Katherine Rush also taught them about floral design at this station.

Doniphan West District Stars

Keaton Blevins and Katherine Rush were named the Northeast District Stars in Ag Placement and Agribusiness, respectively.

The announcement was made after Keaton and Katherine competed in a round of interviews on March 7. The interviews consisted of questions about the students' Supervised Agricultural Experience programs. Keaton and Katherine will advance to the state level from here. They will be recognized at the Northeast District FFA Banquet on April 25 at Rock Creek High School. The state winners will be announced in the final session at the Kansas FFA State Convention in Manhattan on June 3.

Keaton and Katherine are pictured below working for their SAE programs. Keaton's SAE is Diversified Agricultural Production and Katherine's SAE is Vegetable Production.

Selection Day

Doniphan West FFA has several reasons to be proud of its students after the 2011 Selection Day. On March 2, six members from Doniphan West received their State FFA Degrees, while five members won proficiency awards.

Keaton Blevins and Katherine Rush were named district finalists for Star in Placement and Star in Agribusiness, respectively. They will continue the District Star process by interviewing on March 7. The district winners will be announced then. Meanwhile, Laura Rush was named the Northeast District Star Greenhand in Agribusiness for her work in vegetable and fruit production.

Members that received their state degrees were Keaton Blevins, Ben Petrik, Katherine Rush, Stephanie Scales, Austin Veach and Tanner Veach. To receive the state degree an FFA member must productively earn and invest at least $2000 or work a minimum of 600 hours in their Supervised Agricultural Experience program.

The proficiency award winners were:

Brennan Davis - Ag Services, Ag Mechanics Repair and Maintenance
Nick Johnson - Forestry Management
Katherine Rush - Vegetable Production
Stephanie Scales - Specialty Animal Production
Kayla Schmitz - Diversified Horticulture

Tyler Diveley was the runner-up in Dairy Production Placement and Ben Petrik ranked 3rd in Home and/or Community Development.

Students that won their proficiency area will be recognized at the Northeast District Banquet on April 25. Their applications will advance to the state level which will be judged on March 19.

Our Year, So Far

This year has been a very fun and successful year for the Doniphan West FFA Chapter. In case you've missed our previous blog posts, here is a list of what we've done so far:

1. We kicked off our events with an officer retreat. For this officer retreat, we went camping and canoeing. While on our retreat we worked on the Program of Activities (POA) for the upcoming year.
2. After school started our first big event was our FFA Tailgate fundraiser on Sept. 17. We also received a generous grant for $2,000 from Monsanto.
3. Greenhand Conference was the first competition of the year. At Greenhand Conference freshmen compete in the FFA Information Test and participate in workshops to teach them about FFA.
4. The next big event was National Convention! This is the highlight of theyear for many of the FFA members. This year, officers and Greenhand winners traveled to the big city of Indianapolis and participated in the many fun events such as the Career Show, workshops and sessions.
5. Barnwarming is our chapter's other big fundraiser that took place in November. We host a meal for our community then move on to the Chores. A boy and girl were selected from each class to compete in the chores and FFA test. Seniors Nick Johnson and Mackenzie Cunningham were named our Beau and Sweetheart.
6. Fruit sales rounded out our very busy semester. This year, we also started selling meat and cookie dough.

Throughout the year our members have also participated in many different Career Development Events and we have done very well, with members placing at every event.

Our year has been successful so far and we hope to continue that success the rest of the year.

FFA Scholarship

New this year from the Doniphan West FFA Alumni Chapter is the Alumni Scholarship. This scholarship will be offered to all seniors that have been involved in FFA for at least three years. The scholarship is worth $250 towards the recipients school of choice. The scholarship is good for any technical school, two year school, or a four year college. All seniors that are interested in applying for the scholarship must have the completed application form, from the website, turned into an advisor by April 1st.

-K. Blevins