Gavel raised, President Carly Richmond begins the FFA meeting being held in Madison Owens’s floral design classroom.
FFA stands for Future Farmers of America and is an organization based on agriculture and leadership. Its chapter at Prosper has been around for about 75 years.
“Everybody always thinks that it’s Future Farmers of America, and that’s it, but it is so much more than that,” Richmond said. “It opens up doors to meeting new people, making connections, growing leadership skills, growing public speaking, and doing all of the contests that FFA offers – which can really just direct you in all areas of agriculture.”
FFA has a diverse range of competitions that members can participate in, such as leadership development events (LDEs), speaking development events (SDEs), career development events (CDEs), and livestock showings. LDEs focus on leadership skills such as speaking and teamwork, which can be helpful in future jobs. SDEs are when students are given an agricultural topic and have to deliver a six–to eight–minute speech about it.
CDEs are events based on the agriculture industry, such as horse evaluations. Lastly, livestock showings are when students show animals such as rabbits and goats at competitions for their quality.
“Usually when people think of FFA, the first thing they think of is showing animals, and it’s very much one of the smallest portions of FFA,” FFA advisor Kayla Frank said. “We have a wide variety of things that we can do and you don’t necessarily have to have an animal to be in FFA. That’s what I always try to preach to students: no matter what your interest is, there is a place for you.”
As an FFA advisor, Frank said her and the three other FFA advisors’ job is to counsel the officers as FFA is a student-led organization.
“We’re letting the students be hands on,” Frank said. “We’re letting them take the initiative of actually planning meetings, planning student events, all that fun stuff. We are more or less behind the scenes, sort of working with the numbers, working our rosters, things like that.”
FFA meetings are held once a month and are led by the officer team consisting of 10 students. Because leadership is such a big aspect of the FFA organization, Richmond said it has really grown her public speaking skills.
“I used to be a timid little freshman, and now I’m able to stand up in front of large groups of people, parents, admin, whoever I have to talk to, and no problem,” Richmond said. “I’m able to say what I need to say confidently and reassured that I will get the message across.”
FFA is the largest student–led organization in the United States. In the state of Texas, there are over 123,000 members, and the Prosper chapter consists of 183 students. The only requirements to join the organization are to pay the FFA fees and be enrolled in at least one agricultural class.
I’m looking forward to being a veterinarian, and I feel like that is a part of agriculture,” sophomore Lyn Lee said. “It will help me a lot to learn about it, so I joined FFA.”
Prosper has three different agricultural pathways students can participate in – animal science, plant science/floral, and agriculture mechanics/engineering. Each of these pathways has a variety of classes students can take either for their intended career or fun.
“I was inspired (to join FFA) because I’m in advanced floral design right now, and my teacher really encouraged us all to join,” junior Addi Goley said. “So I thought it would be really fun to make new friends.”
As its season of LDEs unfolds, FFA’s next competition will be a district LDE competition on Nov. 12.
“It’s always our goal as a chapter and just the national organization as a whole to really help raise awareness for the organization because a lot of students are reluctant to join because they’re like, oh, I don’t want to be a farmer,” Richmond said. “I don’t want to be a farmer either. I want to be a chiropractor, and I have still found just as much value and just like essence in this organization that I will carry out throughout the rest of my life with me.”
