CORVALLIS — Neela Hammerstein’s small classroom at Corvallis High School has big impacts beyond its walls.
There, FFA students are learning skills to better their futures and the future of agriculture.
So far, it has taken them to Bozeman and Indianapolis, where Corvallis bloomed at the National FFA Convention.
“It's really true when they say ‘FFA is the FFA family.’ We are a family,” said Hasalyn Schairer, Corvallis FFA chapter president. “This is a really big honor to represent Corvallis at the national level.”
The students in Ms. Hammerstein’s class are all in on agriculture. In April, three of their teams won at the Montana State FFA Convention. This fall, they ranked high at Nationals.
“It wasn't exactly what I imagined it would be like, but it was better,” Junior Kaia Benson said. “There were so many cool opportunities besides the actual competitions. There was an expo that businesses and universities were able to have a booth at and they had lots of workshops.”
Benson’s team focused on agriculture communications. They attended a press conference, then created multimedia stories, including a written feature, a video, a magazine layout and a social media plan. The team received a silver medal, placing 26th in the competition.
From a small classroom in Corvallis to 4th place at FFA Nationals!
“It's all based around AG communication, so being able to reach demographics and just how you can do that effectively,” she said. “I get to learn about some event that's going on in agriculture and then, being able to write about it and share that story, it's pretty cool.”
Hasalyn Schairer and Caleb Reynoso, both seniors, were on the environmental and natural resources team. They dove into all sorts of environmental science.
In the competition, they had to profile soil and water, judge conditions and offer management suggestions for a pumpkin patch. They placed 17th, also with a silver medal.
“It was a really fun experience to be outside in the field playing with the dirt, freezing cold in a pumpkin patch,” Reynoso said.
Junior Beauden Therrien was on the marketing team. They partnered with local Aspen Grove Farm, winning fourth place nation-wide for their plan to turn extra berries into vinaigrette.
Melissa Allred, owner of Aspen Grove, is going to take their marketing plan to the market. She is working to make a vinaigrette based on the students’ project.
“At first, it was a little scary but just a big honor to be presenting this in front of so many people and to reach such a big audience,” Therrien said. “They're going to plan on making it for the next, following year and it's just really, it's honestly like super mind blowing.”
The students’ passion for agriculture, however, goes way beyond one contest or even one class. For many, it is a lifelong interest and potential career.
“From a little age, I've always known I've been interested in plants and through FFA I've been able to discover that environmental science is very important to me,” Reynoso said. “Over the summer, I worked with the MSU Researching Center, so that was a ton of fun to just really get an outlook on to a possible career.”
“My favorite part of FFA is probably all the opportunities,” Benson said. “I got to tour the PBS at MSU, and we got to do a fake news shoot, and I got to be an anchor, and it was super fun and that's actually what got me interested in this part of media.”
“I learned a lot more about marketing and just small farms in Montana,” Therrien said. “It’s the best decision I made in high school, for sure.”
Schairer grew up watching her sisters in Corvallis FFA. Now, she is the chapter president. As a senior, that will change soon, but Schairer is looking ahead.
Like the other students, she credits a lot to Ms. Hammerstein’s class and its culture of agriculture.
“I’ve had this jacket since I was a freshman and it holds so many dear memories and little pins and trinkets inside of it,” she said. “I’m going to take a lot of this knowledge that I learned through FFA contests into the real world into my life beyond college and everything else. I kind of I'm unsure of what I want to do right now. One of the options is being an ag teacher, which is greatly inspired by my ag teacher that I have here.”
