FFA students honored at state convention

Nearly a dozen Marion County students were honored at last week’s state FFA convention in Manhattan.

Cassie Meyer of Marion High School was statewide winner in prepared public speaking and leadership development.

The topic for her six-to-eight-minute speech, with manuscript, bibliography, and five minutes of questions and answers, was “Where’s the Food?”

Meyer will represent Kansas in a national version of the competition in Indianapolis.

Fellow county students Grace Knepp of Centre High School and Cheyenne Bernhardt of Hillsboro High School won $1,000 scholarships from Ford Trucks at the state convention.

Six county students received state FFA degrees.

To qualify, students must have studied agriculture for at least two years and earned at least $2,000 or worked at least 600 hours in a supervised agricultural activity.

They also must give a six-minute speech about agriculture or FFA and participate in eight different leadership activities, among other requirements.

Recipients from Marion County included Kendall Hiebert, Rylie May, and Stephany Meyer of Goessel High School; Devin Soyez of Marion High School; and Morgan Gaines and Taylor Wallace of Peabody-Burns High School.

Also at the convention, Centre High School’s Tyler Nickel was selected by audition to play tuba in the state FFA band.

Grace Knepp represented the south-central district in an employability skills event. (LDE), representing the South Central District, and Dillon Knepp, also of Centre, was recognized for his state supervised agriculture experience grant.

The Centre chapter was recognized in the gold division of the Growing Leaders national chapter award and in the silver division for building communities and strengthening agriculture areas. The chapter was also recognized as a 13-year contributor of the Chapter Seed Fund of the Kansas FFA Foundation.  

The Centre and Marion chapters teamed up to compete in a dodgeball tournament.