NTS celebrates FFA Week
TOM PINNEY/DAILY FORUM
Members of the Future Farmers of America club at Northwest Technical School serve breakfast during the annual Community Appreciation Breakfast Wednesday morning. The breakfast is part of the annual FFA Week festivities for NTS and students around the county.
It’s National Future Farmers of America Week, and programs around the county are celebrating in a few different ways.
From barn warmings to dress-up days, FFA clubs are putting their own unique spins on their celebrations. But across the programs in the county, one thing remains constant.
“It’s about promoting the club and showing people what the students do,” said Jeremy Lacy, FFA Advisor at Northwest Technical School. “We also take time to show appreciation to people in the community and all they do to support us.”
One of the biggest ways FFA programs thank the community is at a Community Appreciation Breakfast. Several programs in the county, such as Jefferson and South Nodaway, hold that breakfast on Saturday to kick off the week’s festivities, while NTS holds its on Wednesday.
For the students, that meant arriving at the school earlier they normally would.
“I got here this morning at 5:30 a.m.,” said NTS FFA president Amanda Frueh. “ We do things like this because we want to give back to the community as much as they give to us.
“We invite anyone and everyone to the breakfast, especially including parents because of all they do for us. We also take shifts serving or running the stations so that the students can get a chance to eat with their families.”
Frueh joined the club in her freshman year because she knew she wanted to be involved.
“I grew up around FFA kids, and my freshman year we had a great group of seniors who were always involved and getting everyone else involved,” Frueh said. “We try to emulate that as the years go on, and we’ve got a good group of seniors this year.
“It’s important to be involved in a club like FFA, because it provides a family foundation at the school. We spend a lot of time traveling together for competitions and conventions, and we bond through those trips. Those family foundations last a lifetime.”
The skills are also widely transferrable, according to Lacy.
“The students participate in leadership activities, state fairs, and other things like that,” Lacy said. “Through that they learn employable skills and develop into leaders in their own right, so that it doesn’t matter if they’re working on a farm or in an office, they know what they’re doing.”
Other events on Northwest Technical School’s FFA Week agenda include a truck and tractor day and a farm show.