NORFOLK, Neb. – Each year in late February, the Northeast Community College campus hosts more than 1,500 FFA students for district contests.
Such a large undertaking requires an all-out effort. Faculty, students and staff help with everything from judging to feeding everyone and keeping the restrooms clean.
More than 50 schools attended this year’s contests, featuring three districts on Tuesday, February 25. Students were spread out in several buildings on campus, as well as the Chuck Pohlman Ag Complex farther east.
Many of the FFA students were easy to spot, wearing blue jackets with bright gold lettering, listing their school’s name on the back. Some wore ties, with jackets zipped to the top to provide a professional appearance.
Northeast has hosted district FFA contests for more than 40 years, with the entire college involved in an event of this magnitude. Categories ranged from agronomy to welding.
One of the largest chapters competing was the West Point FFA Chapter, which has established itself as a contender in many District III competitions.
Lee Schroeder, the West Point FFA adviser, said he had 82 students competing. Schroeder said the importance of events like Tuesday help the students learn about various careers. Districts III, IV and X competed at Northeast.
“Sometimes they find something they really like and make it their career,” Schroeder said. “We’ve had lots of students do that over the years. Sometimes they decide they don’t like something and that’s important too to decide if it is something you don’t want to do.”
Schroeder, who competed in FFA contests when he was in high school, said the competitions help the students learn about all the aspects of agriculture.
“One of the things I tell my students is that, ‘We want you to come back to West Point and Cuming County. Nobody is beating down the bush to move from Omaha to West Point.’ We have to grow our own employees and our next generations in the small towns. FFA is a good way to do that.”
Trevor Bailey, Northeast Community College Information Technology instructor, was among the faculty assisting. Bailey was operating a computer game in the Cox Activities Center, which served as a gathering place for many students between competitions.
Bailey’s programming students worked on coding for a game that FFA students could play. The game helped to promote Information Technology and programming offered at the college.
“We are trying to reach out to students walking by or trying to kill time,” Bailey said.
The game didn’t have a limit, allowing participants to play as long as they liked. There were ways to change the code to make it easier or harder.
Along with Bailey, some of his advanced web programming students helped.
“We’ve had a lot of interest,” Bailey said. “We are also giving out the Nerd candies as a lot of IT people consider themselves nerds. It seems like everyone is having fun.”
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