The 90-member Caledonia Chapter of Future Farmers of America distinguished itself once again as a top student organization. It is now only one of 15 Michigan chapters out of 110 that earned a Gold Award at the FFA state convention recently held at Michigan State University.
The Caledonia FFA accomplished this esteemed achievement by pulling ahead in the state convention programs contest areas of: student, chapter and community development.
The Caledonia FFA’s first year members, known as Greenhands, performed well in the Leadership Development Events. The Greenhand Conduct of Meetings team earned a 4th place gold award.
Team members included Julian Buchan, Katelynn Potter, Alyssa DeGood, Courtney Bushart, Precious Stanton, Lauren Burgess and Abigail Ressler. Shannon Good earned a gold award and was state runner-up in Junior High Public Speaking. Kaitlyn Harper earned silver in Prepared Public Speaking. Madelyn Clark won a scholarship to attend the Washington Leadership Conference.
Caledonia FFA had six students earn the state FFA degree this year: Emily Folkema, Kylie Frahm, Cameron Hutson, Kyle Schaap, Matthew Rogers and Alexi Wolf. Seven students received the Outstanding Junior award – Lexi Lieske, Avery Verberg, Ashley Cross, Kaelynn Kerr, Andrew Lanser, Madeline Clark and Kenzie Newman.
Thirteen students earned academic recognition from the FFA: Jenna Asper, Madeline Clark, Ashley Cross, Katherine Fairchild, Kylie Frahm, Kaitlynn Harper, Jon Hubbell, Abigail Munger, James Norton, Danielle Oracz, Carly Pieri, Jordyn Skinner and Alexi Wolf. Hailey Goble, Alexandria Schut and Jerry Pell were named as state proficiency award winners.
Previously, the Caledonia FFA Chapter earned the 2014 National Chapter Award Program from the National FFA Organization, ranking it in the top five percent of chapters in the nation. That means of the 7,500 FFA chapters in the nation, less than 200 chapters can legitimately lay claim to that honor.
