At about 1,000 miles on Indiana roads for each of them, National FFA week was very busy for the seven Indiana state officers, but it was full of opportunity to meet and impact members. During a drop-in at Delphi High School state reporter Leah Jacobs said her visits included staff breakfasts, petting zoos and the Delphi worker auction, all giving her the opportunity to “promote FFA to people who haven’t been around it before and just engage and connect with more FFA members, and it’s been awesome to see some of the people get excited about FFA whether they’ve been a member for years or maybe haven’t been around it as long.”
Jacobs says she and the other officers always like to promote how FFA has a little something for any Indiana high school student.
“Whenever I’m around FFA members I get excited about just how many are out here and then just the diversity in our organization,” she said. “I think that’s something that’s been cool as I visited different schools, seeing how diverse our organization is because it truly has a place for everyone and I think we can see that as we scan across the Delphi members this evening.”
Doug Walker is one of two FFA advisors at Delphi. He said the worker auction tradition during FFA week is actually an important fundraiser too.
“This auction is our highlight,” he told HAT. “It is also our largest fundraiser for the year. This will bring in over half of the income for the year. FFA week is nice because it the community aware of what’s going on in agriculture, people in the community, people in the school and other students who aren’t necessarily ag students, although we are unique in that every student who goes through our school takes an agriculture class, at least as an 8th grader and possibly later.”
He said they requested an officer visit for the auction many weeks ago, and the fulfilled request had a wrinkle to it.
“Leah’s dad was actually my advisor in high school, so it’s kind of full circle. Kind of neat.”
Catch up with the week’s state officer travels at their Facebook and blog sites.