The Indian Creek FFA’s Novice Team won the state championship for Chapter Meeting.
Submitted by Joshua Dunn
Two Johnson County FFA Chapters earned state champion titles and are heading to nationals.
Students from Whiteland Community High School and Indian Creek High School FFA groups earned those accolades. Whiteland FFA was named a state champion in Milk Quality. Indian Creek FFA was named State Champion in Meats Evaluation and Novice Chapter Meeting. Their Senior Team placed 5th in the state for the Chapter Meeting competition.
Chapter Meeting
Students spent about three months practicing and preparing for each competition, said Joseph Dunn, FFA Advisor.
The Chapter Meeting competition is “wildly different” from other FFA competitions, he said. To prepare, students learn traditional FFA opening and closing ceremonies and run mock meetings with parliamentary procedures and debate. Two teams, the novice team, grades seven through nine, and the senior team, grades 10 through 12, competed in the competition. The novice team answered oral questions before a panel of judges, while the senior team answered oral questions and took a written test.
Dunn said the meetings function similarly to town councils or school boards. Students have to know how to function in a meeting, work through motions, communicate their positions and more. They are given a note card with information about what they will talk about and different motions to make. Students also have to think on their feet, he said.
“One of the things I always teach the teams is the purpose of parliamentary procedure is to provide the rule of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority,” Dunn said. “And really the right of the minority is their voice. So every person in the room whether you’re going to lose or win on that vote, you have a right to be able to speak and you have a right to be able to debate to try to convince some of your fellow meeting mates or members, to sway them in your direction.”
From the competition, students learn a basic understanding of making motions properly, effective communication and rules and procedures.
Dunn has been teaching FFA for 11 years and can always see a difference in his students by the end of the year, especially for the novice team members, he said.
“It’s a blank slate that you’re starting from scratch and by the end you can see how they are looking at each other and knowing what each other are thinking,” Dunn said. “There’s no other competition that you’re really doing that in FFA.”
FFA Advisor Samantha Deppe was a part of the last group of seniors to qualify for state in 2019 and has now helped lead the novice team to the same achievement. Helping students make it to the national contest as an advisor has been “huge” for Deppe, she said.
“It’s such an accomplishment and we’re so proud of these kids,” Deppe said. “This was the first novice team from Indian Creek that had even been to state, let alone won the state contest … They killed it and I was in tears by the time they came out.”
Working around other extracurricular activities, students spent most mornings and sometimes evenings practicing for the competition, Dunn said. Students are already wondering when they can begin practicing for the national competition, he said.
“Success breeds success,” Dunn said. “Watching those students do well in that contest … has created an engine here of just churning out kids that are interested in this competition, that want to compete in it.”
Senior Emilee Pickerel is a testament to the skills that students learn as future leaders, advisors said.
When Pickerel first joined the team, she was quiet and shy, she said. Through FFA, she has learned to be more social, outgoing and has learned leadership skills along the way as chapter president, she said.
For the first time, two senior teams also competed at the district level and won first and second place, Dunn said.
Meats Evaluation
Indian Creek students were also named state champions in Meats Evaluation competition.
Students worked to identify various cuts of meat including beef, pork and lamb and learned about different regulations and laws when it comes to meat handling and processing. They also identify the quality of the cuts and determine which one is better overall, Dunn said.
Sophomore Colton Kephart participated in the competition and has learned how meat is processed and handled, he said. Participating in FFA has taught him about the different career paths he can take, how to make connections and how to present himself as a member.
The accomplishment of becoming a state champion took “a lot of practice,” Kephart said.
When the team heard that they had won the championship, Pickerel screamed in excitement, she said.
“It was quite the reaction for me,” Pickerel said. “I’ve been wanting this to happen for quite a long time now. Definitely was just fun, but super overjoyed. Super, super proud.”
For her, the meats evaluation competition is her favorite to compete in. To have won, it means “everything” to Pickerel.
Students will compete in Denver early next year at the National Western Stock Show 2025. Dunn hopes to visit some meat lockers with the students for practice, he said. They will also make a stop at the University of Wyoming for a practice session before the national competition.
“When they find that avenue and they find that passion and to watch them put the time and effort and energy into an event and see success, it’s really rewarding,” Dunn said.
Milk Quality
Whiteland Community High School FFA competed in the Indiana FFA Milk Quality and products contest and won the state championship, said Hannah Goeb, FFA Advisor.
The students will compete in the national competition, which will take place in Indianapolis in October. Most of the students on the team have been working toward a state championship for a few years, Goeb said.
Students identify different dairy products during the competition. They have to be able to distinguish between dairy products and non-dairy products like almond milk or other milk substitutes. Students are also required to take a test on managing dairy cattle on the farm, milk marketing and more. They also learn to identify different defects that can be found in milk, score them and determine whether the milk is good for human consumption.
Some of the questions on the quiz include things like milk prices, how much a farmer gets for the milk, store prices and more.
Students were excited when they found out that they had won, Goeb said.
“When we got back to the school, they were like ‘do you think the results are posted?’ and I said ‘Oh, I don’t know. Probably not yet, but you guys can look.’ So they got online and looked and they were just freaked out. They’re like ‘Oh my gosh, we won. We won,’” Goeb said.
This will be the second time that the school’s FFA Team will go to nationals, Goeb said.
Students are going to take a break and celebrate their victory before they begin practicing again in the summer, she said. One thing that will be different from the state competition is a team activity where students will get a problem based on milk quality and work together to come up with a plan or solution.
“I’m just really proud that this is the second group we’ve had at Whiteland go on to a national contest,” Goeb said. “When I started teaching, we had never done this contest before and we kind of went in not knowing a lot about it. And I think we’ve learned a lot over the years.”
