2024-2025 DELTA FFA OFFICER TEAM … Walter Hallett IV – President, Gracyn Pelton – Treasurer, Abbigail Savage – Vice President, Jayda Graham – Sentinel, Allison Earl – Secretary, Ryan Graham – Student Advisor, Jordinn Heinemann – Reporter
DISTRICT AGRONOMY CDE TEAM … Walter Hallett IV, Gracyn Pelton, Tucker Stricklin, Elizabeth Schlatter.
STATE FFA DEGREE RECIPIENTS … Abbigail Savage, Allison Earl, Tucker Stricklin.
AMERICAN FFA DEGREE RECIPIENTS … Hannah Barnes and Kendra Ehrsam.
DELTA FFA HONORARY CHAPTER DEGREE RECIPIENTS … Bill Haase, Victoria Nofziger, Patrick Schulze.
By: Melanie Wyse
DELTA FFA REPORTER
On Saturday, April 27th the annual Delta FFA Chapter Banquet and Awards night was held. After dinner everyone was escorted to the Delta High School Auditorium, where the exciting night truly started. A total of 175 members and guests attended.
The big awards handed out consisted of the following: Greenhand Degrees, Chapter Degrees, Star Greenhand, Star Farmer, Outstanding Junior Achievement, DeKalb Senior Award, Outstanding Class Awards, and Honorary Chapter Degrees.
The banquet is all about recognizing our members’ accomplishments throughout the school year. One of the major accomplishments is all of the CDEs students put their time and effort into.
We recognize all District and State CDE individuals and teams. We also recognized members who were top in the Fall Sales, Trapshoot, County Fair, Pest Hunt, and Spring Sales.
The Greenhand Degree was handed out to all first year FFA members that completed the Greenhand requirements. A total of 19 members earned their Greenhand Degree.
This Degree is the first degree that an FFA member earns in their FFA time. The next degree is the Chapter Degree, this is given to second year FFA members. This year 24 members earned their Chapter Degrees.
The Star Greenhand Award was presented to Ana Gilders. Ana is an active chapter member demonstrating outstanding leadership, FFA participation and scholastic achievement.
The Star Chapter Farmer was presented to Gracyn Pelton. Gracyn demonstrated outstanding achievement in her Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) programs, actively participating in chapter activities, and showed strong leadership.
The Outstanding Junior Achievement Award is modeled after the Senior DeKalb Award. There were two recipients this year, Allison Earl and Abbigail Savage. Both members have shown outstanding leadership and dedication to the chapter and their personal CDE and SAEs.
The DeKalb Award is a national award sponsored by Monsanto for the last 70 years. This annual award, established in 1947, honors outstanding high school seniors across the U.S. for their excellence in three areas: scholarship, leadership and agricultural work experience.
This year’s DeKalb Award winner was Walter Hallett IV, who has shown great leadership throughout his four years in the FFA through his SAEs, CDEs, and numerous FFA activities.
The next few awards handed out were the Outstanding Class Awards. Students earn this award based on their grade level, their participation in the chapter, by showing a great amount of growth throughout the year and always being diligent and determined in everything they do.
This year’s outstanding Freshmen were, Jensyn Gillen and Jakub Heinemen. This year’s outstanding Sophomore was Bella Griffith.
This year’s outstanding Junior was Melanie Wyse, and this year’s outstanding Seniors were Tucker Stricklin and Elizabeth Schlatter.
All of these students showed amazing effort in their activities and remained diligent and determined the entire year.
The Honorary Chapter Degree is presented by helping out the FFA chapter without expecting anything in return. This year’s Honorary Chapter Degrees were presented to Bill Haase, Miss Victoria Nofziger, and Mr. Patrick Schulze.
These individuals continuously helped out the FFA chapter in multiple ways. They did not expect anything in return and were providing for their community and the FFA chapter. Thanks to their help we were able to accomplish so much this year
At the end of the banquet the new officers were installed. The new Delta FFA officer team includes – Gracyn Pelton (President), Abbigail Savage (Vice President), Allison Earl (Secretary), Ana Gilders (Treasurer), Melanie Wyse (Reporter), Ryan Graham (Sentinel), Kelsi Willitzer (Student Advisor), Edmida Hintz (Parliamentarian), and Ashlynn Tedrow (Historian).
The Delta FFA would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our members, families, community members, school staff and administrators, and all others supporters for making this year a success.
