Category Archives: FFA

On Tuesday, May 17th, 2022, the Hay Springs FFA Chapter hosted their 2nd annual FFA Banquet for the public to attend. They started off with the opening ceremonies performed by the 2021-2022 Chapter Officers followed by the free meal that consisted of pulled pork, potatoes, and salads and desserts that were provided by the FFA members and their families. Once everyone concluded with the meal, we resumed the ceremony with our guest speaker Dana Soukup. Dana was a keynote speaker who was once taught by our own Mr. Lechtenberg and who became the State FFA President and moved on to become the National FFA President during the years 1988 and 1989. He started out as a small part of a company and worked his way up to becoming the President of Siemens Industry Inc, a global organization.
After Dana finished his speech, the ceremony moved onto the recognition of the State Degree recipients, the Star Greenhand recipients, and the Chapter Star recipients. This year we gave two awards to Honorary Chapter Members for giving a lot of community support. These awards were presented to David Russell and representatives of Westco based in Hay Springs.
Following this, there was the Chapter Leadership Award presented to our president, Braydon Binger, for possessing the most ideal leadership qualities in our chapter. This year, we had two senior FFA members who were also officers. These two seniors, Logan Decoste and Laney Smith, both gave their retiring addresses and showed their support for the future FFA members.
As most of you know, Mr. Lechtenberg, our ag advisor and superintendent, is planning to retire this year. To honor everything he did for us, the chapter made him an appreciation slideshow with clips from his family members and from students he inspired. The FFA members also made him a precious gift to honor his time as an advisor and to always remind him of what he accomplished. To end the night, the 2021-2022 FFA officers announced and installed the new officer team for 2022-2023. It was then put upon these officers to finish off the evening with the closing ceremonies.

We will try to keep this post updated with state FFA results as we get them!  Keep an eye open for updates as they roll in.  Big thanks to Mr. Lechtenberg for the “play-by-play”.

04/06/22 @ 5:41 PM — Abigail Russell is one of four finalists in Junior Public Speaking Finals tomorrow with final results on Friday afternoon.

04/06/22 @ 5:51 PM — Logan DeCoste performing in State FFA Chorus at State FFA Convention:

04/07/22 @ 7:15 AM — Part of the State Choir’s Performance:

04/07/22 @ 5:50 PM — State Chorus

04/07/22 @ 6:41 PM — Braydon Binger recieved third place award in both Diversified Agricultural Placement and Diversified Livestock Placement.

04/08/22 @ 12:56PM — Abigail Russell was 3rd Gold in Jr. Public Speaking and Colter Meeks received a Bronze.

04/08/22 @ 4:06 PM — Logan DeCoste and Laney Smith set to receive their State FFA Degree.

Everyone should be very proud of the Hay Springs FFA students who made it to this level. This is the first year that anyone from Hay Springs qualified a Proficiency to the State Level, let alone have 11 of them compete. Braydon Binger will interview at the State Convention on April 6th for a chance to win State and take his to Nationals next October not just once but twice as you can see.

This competition wasn’t just against our District but all of the FFA Districts in the state of Nebraska.

FFA WEEK IS HERE! It started February 19th and ends February 26th. We have some fun dress up days for the whole school as well starting with… all week long there will be guessing contest set up by the office, there will be a jar full of cake cubes and closest guess wins!

Monday: Anything but a backpack day! Students can choose anything but a backpack to put their school supplies in! Be creative. Elementary coloring contest also starts Monday.

Tuesday: Dress as favorite staff member day.

Wednesday: Elementary day! Rotations of 30 minutes with activities! Blue and gold day!

Thursday: Staff and community appreciation day! Public is welcome we will be serving pancakes and sausage with beverages, breakfast starts at 6:30 AM elementary coloring contest results will be announced during lunch with prizes! It is also educational movie day (school wide) and pajama day for the elementary students!

We hope everyone has fun celebrating FFA week with us!

Get your Hay Springs FFA shirt and support the FFA program at Hay Springs High School.  The store link is only available until Tuesday, October 5th, so don’t wait!

https://stores.inksoft.com/hay_springs_ffa/shop/home

Hay Springs Agricultural Science and FFA members are successful at virtual
State FFA and Agri-Science competition

The results of the State FFA and Ag Education competition are in and I am very proud of our students. Several of these contests are in areas that the students had to qualify at districts in order to compete at state and some are contests that are open to state wide competition.

In the “Leadership Skills Events” we had two individuals and one team qualify to compete. Abigail Russell represented district XII in the “Creed Speaking” contest and ended up with the fifth place Gold award. RyLee Wolken qualified in Senior Public Speaking and received a Bronze award in state competition. Our CCM “Chapter Conduct of Meetings” after previously winning District competition competed at state and received a bronze ranking as well. Members of this team were: Abigail Russell, President, Taden Tobiasson, Vice-President, Alexa Tonjes, Secretary, Jordyn Anderson, Reporter, Noah Kelly, Treasurer, Abigail Nelson, Sentinel, and Jarhett Anderson as the Advisor. Alternates to the team were Ava McKillip, Hayden Boles and Adrianna Haffner. Leadership Skills Events are ranked Bronze, Silver and Gold with a maximum of two competitors from each district so there was a maximum of 48 teams or individuals in each of the leadership events.

Hay Springs students competed in ten different “Career Development Events“. Of the ten contest areas we competed in we received a ribbon award in seven of the team competitions. Hay Springs teams also placed in the top 25 teams in seven of these ten areas state wide all classes. The greatest area of competition was in the Agri Science competition they were 98 teams and 364 individuals. Our team of Ava McKillip, Abigail Russell, Abigail Nelson and Alexa Tonjes placed 7th which is in the top 7% of all teams competing.

Individually we had three students receive Purple ribbons, Ava McKillip, 7th in Agri Science top 2%, Braydon Binger, 24th in Agronomy top 8%, and Colter Meeks 26th in Farm and Agribusiness Management top 9%. We also had several students receive ribbons in two or more contest areas, Colter Meeks received Purple in Farm & Agribusiness Mgt., and Reds in Junior Livestock Selection and Meats Evaluation and Technology. Jett Rasmussen received Blue awards in Agronomy and in Farm & Agribusiness Mgt. and a White in Agricultural Sales. Braydon Binger received a Purple in Agronomy and a Red in Meats Evaluation and Technology. Abigail Nelson received a Blue in Agri Science and a Red in Nursery and Landscape, and Jaiden Anderson received a Red in Senior Livestock Selection and a White in Environmental & Natural Resources.

As a chapter we received seven team ribbons (1 Purple, 4 Reds & 2 Whites) and twenty-four individual ribbons (3 Purples, 6 Blues, 10 Reds, & 5 Whites). For a chapter that is in its second year, the community should be extremely proud of these young men and women. Great Job!
The FFA and Agricultural Science Education program gives our students a very diverse opportunity to learn and study the many different areas of agriculture and leadership development and then compete in their areas of interest at local, district, state and national level. We are so grateful for the support of our community and the board of education in this process.

The complete team and individual CDE placing and scores are listed in the table below.

From Sandhills State Bank:

Three more days remaining to help your local FFA Chapter win $1,000! The next 9 chapters will also receive donations to their programs. Only one vote per person this year so make sure you share away with all of your friends and family!

Click here to vote!

Here is a picture of the top 20 as of today:

State FFA Convention and Agricultural Science Leadership & Career Development Events Competition