News : VS FFA wins national Floriculture, Chapter awards at Convention

Silver Award: FFA Floriculture members Abbie Darland, Amy Andrews, Willow Huber and Jacob Patrilla.

Kyle Henkle and Stephen Stinson receive the 3-Star Award at the National FFA Convention.

Floriculture members during their contest.

Various FFA Convention trip photos...

Silver Award: FFA Floriculture members Abbie Darland, Amy Andrews, Willow Huber and Jacob Patrilla.

VS FFA members who went to the National Convention.

Vinton-Shellsburg FFA members Willow Huber, Amy Andrews, Abbie Darland, and Jacob Patrilla were the first VS FFA members to compete in the national Floriculture Event.

"They competed in 10 different areas in the horticulture industry," said FFA Advisor Louise Fleming.

Those areas included: General knowledge, plant ID, problem solving, Face-to-Face selling, handling a customer complaint, potting plant cuttings, corsage making, floral arrangement, job interview, and a team activity.

Overall, the team placed 18th in the Nation and received a Silver ranking. All the individuals on the team also received Silver ratings on the individual level as well. \\

"I asked the team members if they would all do it again, if they could and they all said yes, which means to me they must have had fun," said Fleming. "I know they liked the team event and found that to be less stressful, because they were able to work together and relax, have fun, and still get the task at hand accomplished."

Those competing in Floriculture spent all afternoon Wednesday competing (after spending half the previous night preparing) then also competed from 8-5 on Thursday, as well.

National Chapter Award

This past April (at the Iowa State Conference) the VS FFA chapter earned 7th place in the state and an overall Gold ranking. The Gold rankings advance to the national level to be judged on each chapter's ability to encourage members to grow individually, work as a team and to serve others.

"We were able to have two representatives (Kyle Henkle and Stephen Stinson) walk across stage to accept our Three Star ranking for this national award," said Fleming. "A Three Star is the highest ranking we can get in this process, but puts us nationally in the top 3% of the chapters in the nation. I like this award, because it is based on the chapter's activities and not the number of members a chapter has. So those chapters with 200 plus members and judged the same as those with only 20 members."

National Convention

Overall, 11 VS FFA members and two chaperones attend the National Convention. The chapter left Tuesday afternoon and returned Saturday evening. The members heard Dave Roever, Keynote speaker. (Dave was a member of the Navy during the Vietnam war and had a white phosphorus grenade explode in his face. He was burned on 40% of his body and lost 60 pounds of flesh. He said that he was drafted in the Army but decided he would be "safer if he joined the Navy, because you can't float too many battleships in rice patties."

The FFA members also enjoyed seeing the country music concert featuring Blake Shelton, Little Big Town and Steel Magnolia, as well as attending a rodeo.

"They loved the Career Show and enjoyed the sessions, but in addition to these things, members were able to tour the Indianapolis Children's museum, Fair Oaks Dairy Farm (which is one of the largest Dairy's in the nation) and we stopped at the John Deere Pavilion in Moline," said Fleming.