By: Shar Dimick
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
The Wauseon FFA hosted members and their families, as well as employers and local business people at their 85th Annual Banquet and awards ceremony on March 17th at the Wauseon High School.
After dinner was served, the program moved into the auditorium for the awards portion. Students were presented with various academic, member, sales and star awards as well as degrees and scholarships throughout the evening. In addition members were recognized for their proficiency and CDE teams.
Active Graduates Ross Andre, Derick Rufenacht, Jeremy Ruger, Micah Schmunk and Austin Wagner all received their American FFA Degrees, which is the highest degree an FFA member can earn. To earn this degree the member must have three years of instructional classroom time, earned and productively invested at least $7,500, or have earned and productively invested at least $1,500, worked 2,250 hours beyond scheduled school hours though their Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) program and achieved their State FFA degree.
State FFA Degrees were awarded to Senior Trent Schroeder, Junior Sara Rufenacht, Junior Abigail Schmunk and Junior Mason Creager. These members had a qualified SAE program, completed two years of school, earned/invested $1,000 or worked 300 hours outside of scheduled class time, and have already received their Chapter FFA Degree.
Senior and 2014-2015 Chapter President Sam Richer was awarded the American Farmer Scholarship. This scholarship was created in honor of a previous agriculture instructor, Mr. Jim Spiess. Senior and 2014-2015 Reporter, Lindsay Fager was awarded the DeAnn Merillat Scholarship, which is given to the female that will be majoring in an agriculturally related field. The scholarship is in memory of DeAnn Merillat, who was the first female in Wauseon FFA history to receive her state degree. In addition, both Richer and Fager received the Wauseon FFA Chapter Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to students that have been actively involved in the chapter at the local, state and national level.
The Honorary Chapter Degree rewards people who are helping to advance agricultural education and the FFA, and who have rendered outstanding service. This year Honorary Chapter Degrees went to Katy Corkle, Jim Figgy, Jason Sewon, Caroline and Jerry Richer and Ryan O’Dell.
District Proficiency Awards went to Richer (First Place in District and Top Four in the State for Vegetable Production), Wagner (First Place in District and Top Four in the State Diversified Ag Production), Cody Spiess (First Place in District and Top Four in the State for Wildlife Management and Production) and Austin Arps ((First Place in District for Diversified Crop Production) while Andre (First Place District State and National Winner for Environmental Science and Nation Resources) and Micah Schmunk (Third Place in the State) received 2014 State Proficiency Awards.
Finally, the officers for the 2015-2016 year were installed. The officers will be as follows: Spiess (President), Beth Yackee (Vice President), Julie Cars (Secretary), Joe Richer (Treasurer), Hunter Thourot (Reporter), Grant Suntken (Sentinel) and Gordon Winland (Student Advisor).
Shar may be reached at
publisher@thevillagereporter.com