It was a busy morning at Crookston High School on Thursday as students gathered for a send-off for Meliyah Moore, who is heading to state in speech, and the FFA, who are also headed to state.
We caught up with Moore just before the send to wish her luck. Not only is this her first time going to State for Speech, but it is her first full year on the speech team. “This is my first time going to state speech. I’ve been to state for FFA, but that’s about it,” says Moore. “This is pretty much my first year in speech. I joined late two years ago.” There are many different categories for speech, and Moore excels in the category in which she will compete. “I’m competing in a category called Extemporaneous Reading,” says Moore. “ It’s where I hold a book and I read short stories and get random cuttings and I make intros up on the spot and read them to the judges and act it out.”
Moore was set to leave the school shortly after the send-off with coaches Brandon Lee and Kathleen Mulvey, as well as a few teammates for support. They will be headed down to Shakopee to get settled for the evening. “The competition is Friday, early in the morning,” says Moore. We leave today, right after this send-off, and we are going to go and chill. Check into our hotel and then compete tomorrow.”
After the send-off, we met with FFA teacher Carolyn Pavlish to learn about their upcoming state competition. The FFA group will leave on Sunday around 11:00 a.m. and start competing Monday morning. The FFA state competitions take place at the U of M St. Paul Campus and the State Fair Grounds, and there are many categories of competition. “The Minnesota FFA has 29 competitive career development events, CDE is our acronym for that,” says Pavlish. “This year, we have kids doing Best Informed Greenhand, which is like an FFA knowledge test; we have Ag Mechanics, which we had great success with last year. Ben Capistran was last year’s state winner in Ag Mechanics. We have Companion Animal Science, Floriculture, Forestry, Nursery Landscape, Milk Quality & Products. I have an Ag Communications team this year, which is like the broadcasting side of agriculture, so they do like a mock press release, which is kind of cool. I have an individual qualified for Horse Evaluation. Her team didn’t make it, but Lana Peterson qualified as an individual.”
Pavlish says some awards have already been designated to some of the students and will be awarded during their time at the state competition. “We are a finalist for an Agriculture Literacy Award in the state, so you fill out an application, and they pick the top three chapters. I believe there are over 200 chapters in Minnesota,” says Pavlish. “So, that’s pretty cool to get recognized on stage for that. We have two people who are finalists in their Proficiency Awards. Proficiency Award in the FFA is essentially how proficient you are at your job in different categories. We have Emilee Smith, who is a finalist in Diversified Horticulture; she works at D & D Thomfords Garden Center, and Ben Capistran is a finalist in two areas, Grain Production Placement and Fiber Oil Entrepreneurship.”
Pavlish also explained that she has four members who are earning their State FFA Degrees. “To earn your state degree, you have to earn your chapter degree, which is kind of like lettering in the FFA,” says Pavlish. “So, you get your green hand as a 9th grader, chapter if you qualify as a 10th grader, and then your State Degree, you earn your Junior or Senior year, depending on if you have enough events above the region level, $1000 or 600 hours into your supervised agricultural experience project. You have to have at least 25 hours with two different community service organizations, and you need to take two years of high school agriculture to apply for the award, and then go through an interview process to be selected.” This year, Emily Bowman, Tessa Weber, Ryan Street, and Michael Bochow qualified for their state degrees and will receive those at the state competition.
A group of 40 FFA students from Crookston will be traveling to St. Paul on Sunday and checking into their hotel for some downtime before the competition starts on Monday. “This year they are going to stay at Great Wolf Lodge,” says Pavlish. “The kids wanted to fundraise a little more and stay somewhere a little bit more fun for them, so they get a whole experience out of it.” Pavlish is very thankful to have a couple of parents going with them to the state to help out as the competition is spread out between the campus and the fairgrounds, and many events are happening at the same time. Shout out to Lorri Capistran and Lacey Bridgeford for their support all year and during the state competition.
Good luck to all the students competing, starting with Meliyah Moore, on Friday morning at the State Speech Competition. After that, she will join the FFA members going to State, who start competing on Monday.
The FFA students competing at state are as follows and are sorted by events they are competing in.
Agriculture Communications: Taylor Wieland, Joslyn Wallace, and Allysen Wagner
Agriculture Mechanics: Benjamin Capistran, Dylan Thode, Austin Thode, and Axl Page
Companion Animal Science: Meliyah Durham Moore, Alexis Durham, Nashelle Tellez, and Bailee Klinnert
Best Informed Greenhand: Lyla Oman, Emmagail Frantz, Isabella Cisneros, Rilynn Aubol, Nathan Pahlen, Asher Wieland, Jacob Biermaier and Brady Samuelson
Floriculture: Emilee Smith, Lillianna Bridgeford, Elle Pierson, and Nevayahlee Bruce
Forestry: Michael Bochow, Tessa Weber, Isabel Pahlen, and Leah Johanneck
Horse Evaluation: Lana Peterson
Milk Quality and Products: Emily Bowman, Rylee Anderson, Sylvia Christensen, and Leia Parkin
Nursery Landscape: Addisyn Schiller, Mykayla Garcia, Cade Wisk, Madilyn Abrams, and Jocelyn Johnson
State Degree Recipients: Michael Bochow, Ryan Street, Emily Bowman, and Tessa Weber
State Proficiency Finalists: Benjamin Capistran and Emilee Smith
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