By LAUREN EAGLE-DEIHL
The Progress
In an effort to boost community involvement and promote the local Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter, Virgin Valley’s FFA set up a fun-filled, yet socially-distanced week of events last week in celebration of National FFA Week.
According to FFA chapter advisor and Virgin Valley agriculture teacher, Lacey Tom, the FFA officers came up with the daily themes that ranged from ‘pajama day’ to ‘Furry Friends of FFA’ as well as ‘floral vs. flannel’ day.
While pajama day was the greatest success, Tom was amused at the surprising turnout of floral ensembles as opposed to flannel. Teachers and students alike were happy to get into the themes as they had virtual meetings for their events.
With special efforts from FFA chapter historian, Pauline Flores, a community-wide scavenger hunt was organized with more than a dozen FFA-related symbols placed around town. Although it began on Sunday, Feb. 21 and ran for a week, the scavenger hunt didn’t quite get the number of participants hoped for, nor did the virtual lunch.
The week had FFA-specific topics as well. One of the virtual events the chapter did was to watch a movie that had special agricultural significance.
One of these, entitled Walk. Ride. Rodeo., follows Amberly Snyder’s journey of recovery back to her beloved rodeo sports after barely surviving a car crash which left her paralyzed from the waist down.
Another example, entitled Farmland, is a documentary about various types of agriculture in the United States.
Students were able to pick between the two movies. While these films were entertaining, they also included informative aspects of farming and agriculture.
In other events, FFA students were encouraged to write letters to their teachers. Hole Foods Bakery in Mesquite even teamed up with them to provide treats for teachers.
The FFA Alumni Spotlight was a great success. Lacey Tom expressed gratitude for the efforts of Ella May Walters in getting yearbooks and photos of local FFA alumni. These were then posted to the chapter’s social media pages with invitations for people to tag anyone they knew to get a bit of history of the chapter. This endeavor saw quite a few visitors going to the social media sites and start to follow their endeavors, Tom said.
“I so appreciate the Virgin Valley community,” Tom stated after FFA Week “I really look forward to having even more community engagement next year.”
Tom also expressed thanks to Hole Foods Bakery, Ella May Walters, the Student Council, and teachers at Virgin Valley High School as well as those who participated in making FFA week such a fun success.
