FFA stands for Future Farmers of America. It is a nation-wide program that aims to demonstrate the importance of agriculture through educational activities.

“As everyone knows, we show animals, but that’s only one [part] that FFA is about,” senior Krista Teleki said. “We also have spring and fall classroom competitions where we dress up like flight attendants and do activities like ‘parliamentary procedure’ where we debate.  You have lots of different options for LDEs in the fall and CDEs in the spring.”

LDE stands for Leadership Development Event, whereas CDE stands for Career Development Event.  Within each, are a great deal of varying activities.

“In the spring, you can do dairy cattle judging,” Teleki said.  “You go around and judge how the cattle looks, the quality of their milk, the percent fat and the anions and cations in the milk.”

The activities do not end there.  Several of the spring competitions revolve around putting the agricultural knowledge obtained through FFA to the test, as well as gaining more.

“In the spring there’s also other competitions,” Teleki said.  “Livestock judging is where you judge pigs, lambs and horses.  Then there’s [competitions for] milk quality where you actually have to taste the milk and decide if it’s ready or explain what’s wrong with it.  And there’s [a similar] competition [for] poultry where you judge different qualities of chicken, and you class out which ones can be sold and which ones can’t, and why they can’t.”

Teleki has made significant progress through the ranks of the program.

“Overall, if you want to improve, that’s done through leadership positions,” Teleki said. “I started my sophomore year and I was just a member.  Then my junior year, I was a low-ranking officer for the chapter.  And then this year, my senior year, I am a chapter vice-president.  And then I also hold a position at district, I’m a district officer as well.”

Teleki has spent a lot of time dedicated to FFA, but she needed some initial motivation to set her agricultural career in motion.

“I didn’t really know what I was getting into. My mom told me, ‘hey, you really like cats and dogs, maybe you should join FFA,’” Teleki said. “We don’t really touch cats or dogs at all.  I raise chickens.  Stepping into it, it was my mom who gave me that first push, and then everything else I learned that FFA encompasses [motivated me] to stay.”