FFA is the top school-based youth leadership organization in the country with more than 1.02 million members across more than 9.2 thousand chapters across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Every FFA member has their own reason for joining, ranging from family tradition, social aspects, or to push themselves to grow their skills. For Monmouth-Roseville FFA Vice President Molly McVey, it was meeting her chapter adviser, Mr. Kilburn that helped push her to join.
“When I was a freshman, I wasn’t really interested in it. No one else in my family has ever done FFA besides my cousins, but then I met Kilburn, the FFA advisor and ag teacher, and hearing all the competitions, and also having Hailey my best friend does it, it really convinced me to give it a shot.,” says McVey. “And doing all the competitions and just talking about it has really made me fall in love.”
Members of the National FFA Organization are given the opportunity to participate in events and opportunities that best line up with their interests. It also helps students like Kadence Grafton, the West Central FFA Secretary participate in a team as a non-athlete.
“I joined FFA because I don’t really do sports, so it gave me the opportunity to participate in other events,” says Grafton. “As a senior, I think FFA has impacted me with all the events that we’ve done, it involves being social, and that’s not something I do a lot, so a lot of getting out of your comfort.”
In some families, FFA membership runs in their roots, which is the case for Abingdon-Avon FFA President Anna Serven.
“Even before I was a freshman, I had always known about FFA. My dad and a lot of my family had always been involved, and so I was really excited to start FFA,” says Serven. “I thought I would be really involved in more livestock judging and just my animals and in general; I ended up being really interested in other subjects, like the Dairy Food CDE and Public Speaking and Parley-Pro.”
United FFA Secretary Leighton Trego also joined the organization to follow in her family’s footsteps. Since joining, she shares she has gained the confidence to take on a bigger role in her chapter as an officer.
“I have had family that’s been in farming and just the ag field in general. My mom majored in agriculture in college, so I kind of wanted to follow in their footsteps,” says Trego “For my senior year, I just really wanted to end things off on a good note and finally decide that, you know what, I can step up and do this, I can accomplish quite a bit if and FFA helped me do that.”
Members of local FFA chapters celebrated National FFA Week from Saturday, February 15 through Saturday, February 22nd.
Local FFA Week coverage on WRAM and WMOI is sponsored by A Eugene Miller Agency, Compeer Financial, Warren Henderson Farm Bureau, D.A. Moore Trucking, Farmers Grain, Western Illinois Accounting and Tax, Jenks Family Farm, Ryner’s Tire & Auto, EMR, Morath Welding, Tri-County Cattlemen, Warren County YMCA, Steve Killey- Thompson Insurance Agency, Killey Farms.
