Versailles FFA Conducts 27th Annual State Greenhand Conference

VERSAILLES — For the 27th consecutive year, the Versailles FFA held its annual State FFA Greenhand Conference. The Conference was held at the Versailles High School on Saturday, Oct. 21 for all of the Greenhands in the state of Ohio. Greenhands are first year members in the FFA. This year they had 371 members attend.

The members came from all across Ohio. Schools that participated in the conference included: A.B Graham HS, A.B Graham MS, Spencerville, Versailles, Mechanicsburg, Valley View- MVCTC, Global Impact, Oregon-Clay, St. Henry, MVCTC, Arcanum MVCTC, Tri-County North MVCTC, Houston UVCC, Wilmington, Ayersville, Urbana, Lakota, Greenon, Paulding, Brooksville, Fayetteville, Twin Valley South, Miami East, Parkway, Eaton, Greenville, Anna, Bradford, Sidney, Greene County Career Center, Gibsonburg, Franklin Monroe, Talwanda, Miller City, Edon, Fairlawn, and New Bremen.

The theme of the conference was “First Down and Life to Go.” The goal of the conference was to make FFA members aware of opportunities within the FFA as well as develop their leadership skills, and to get new members excited about FFA.

The day started off with an official welcome and speech from Kolsen McCoy. He is a former State and National FFA President and uses his experiences to share personal messages to lead others and change how we live. Preceding the speech were various workshops on: Opportunities in the FFA, Teamwork, Goal Setting, Supervised Agriculture Experience (SAE), and Communication.

The students then broke for lunch which was Papa John’s and door prizes were awarded.

To finish out the day the students participated in CDE roundtables presented by officers and other members to learn more about the different career development events within the FFA. The CDE’s exposed in the round tables included: greenhand quiz, agriculture sales, public speaking, parliamentary procedure, wildlife, biotech, agronomy, nursery landscape, ag communications, food science, dairy foods, middle school career exploration, career conversation, impact of ag, and career quiz bowl, general livestock, poultry, dairy, and horse judging.

They would like to thank Weaver Eggs for donating the eggs for the poultry judging roundtable.

Overall the day was a great success. Each greenhand participant left with a greenhand conference t-shirt designed by past Versailles FFA President Brent Stammen. The Conference was conducted by the Versailles FFA Officer Team, Versailles FFA Leadership Committee, Versailles Assistant Officers, Versailles FFA members, State FFA Officers and a Ohio National Officer Candidate.

The Versailles FFA Officers that made conference possible were: President Zoe Billenstein, Vice-President Colin Batten, Secretary Camille George, Treasurer Luke Kaiser, Reporter Riley Kruckeberg, Sentinel Levi Barga, Student Advisor Andrew Lyons, Historian Paige Gehret, and Parliamentarian Eden Barga. The assistant officers who helped were: Assistant Vice President Maggie McGlinch, Assistant Secretary Molly White-Shappie, Assistant Treasurer Andrew Wuebker, Assistent Reporter Amelia Grillot, Assistant Sentinel Danica York. Assistant Student Advisor Hank Smith, Assistant Historian Shawna Schmitmeyer, Assistant Parliamentarian Jayna Luthman. Other Versailles FFA members who helped were: Grace Borchers, Rhylan Broerman, Gracie Henry, Greta Broering, Carlie Gehret, Joe Petitjean, Lucy Schmitmeyer, Elizabeth Rodrigues, Kristen Groff, and Tristan Ward. The State FFA Officers that attended the conference were: National FFA Candidate Morgan Anderson, State FFA President Luke Jennings, State FFA Vice President Delaney Moore, State FFA Reporter Kaydence Morris, State FFA Sentinel Katelyn Kinsella, State FFA Vice President at Large Haylee Acquah, State FFA Vice President at Larga Ava Evers, State FFA Vice President at Large Chloee Howard, State FFA Vice President at Large Anna Moeller, and State FFA Vice President at Large Lauren Thornhill.