National Convention News
2009 Marks the 40th Year with Young Women in the FFA -- Kim Lippert was the first female president for the Minnesota FFA in 1976-1977. "Not only were women getting involved in agricultural education, but we started to see more people from non-farm backgrounds taking agriculture classes and expand the kinds of offerings we see in our high school curricula; FFA has kept up with the same kind of changes seen in agriculture." During the National FFA Convention, Lippert received her honorary FFA degree. Lippert is now an agriculture instructor at Ridgewater College. Listen to the RRFN report at http://rrfn.com/news/425dw.mp3. RRFN's coverage of the National FFA Convention is sponsored, in part, by the Minnesota Agricultural Education Leadership Council.
Larson Honored -- Minnesota State FFA Advisor Joel Larson received the Outstanding National Association of Supervisors of Agricultural Education Award. "There's so many people in state supervision that I look up to as mentors; to be named the outstanding member was not only a surprise, but also an honor." Minnesota started the year with 185 ag education programs, up two from last year. This report can be found at http://rrfn.com/news/431dw.mp3.
Star in Agriscience -- A Foley, Minnesota FFA'er is the 2009 American Star in Agriscience, one of the organization's highest awards. Amy Robak was recognized for her work in agronomy and conservation. Robak is now a student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. After being named one of the four American Stars, Robak encouraged other FFA members to pursue their passion. "FFA can develop skills, not only for agriculture; doing those CDE's are so important and those leadership experiences; doing the internships in your career field is very important to do, too." RRFN's coverage of the National FFA Convention is sponsored, in part, by CHS Incorporated.
Jordan Hanson, Chatfield FFA, was awarded National Entrepreneurship Award at the National FFA Convention
Tom Eilertson, United South Central FFA, was awarded Diversified Agricultural Production-Entrepreneurship/Placement at the National FFA Convention
85 Minnesota FFA members received the American FFA Degree
Kim Lippert, Tom Anderson, Robin Kinney, and Lisa Moorhouse received Honary American FFA Degrees
Mike Rowe with Discovery Channels “Dirty Jobs” was the keynote speaker at the first general session at the National FFA Convention this past week. Below is the link to the video of his speech. It’s about 45 minutes long. http://www.ffa.org/convention/2009/video.cfm
To view other presentations from the convention visit: http://www.schooltube.com/user/nationalffa.
On behalf of the Minnesota FFA Alumni Association we would like to announce the following chapters have been awarded $500 each for the purpose of bringing one of their administrators to the 2009 National FFA Convention:
Red Wing, Pine Island, Randolph, Foley and Dassel Cokato
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Paul Day and Ed Frederick were honored September 6th at the Minnesota State Fair when they were awarded the first Day-Frederick Award for a Lifetime of Dedicated Service to the FFA and the FFA Alumni.
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Dassel-Cokato FFA Alumni was recently notified that it will receive a National FFA Local Program Support Grant of $1000. They will be receiving it at the National FFA Convention in October. The grant was titled ”Enhance Our Curriculum To Beautify Our Dassel Cokato Campus.” The grant will be used for updating the Nursery/Landscape and Horticulture study guides and curriculum. We will also focus on the Emerald Ash borer to develop a plan in case it would infest our school site (which is about 70% ash trees.)