Last week, multiple individuals and teams from the San Luis Obispo High School FFA Chapter flew to Indianapolis, Indiana to compete at the National FFA Convention.

 “We feel extremely blessed and grateful to have had the chance to send so many members to compete at the national level,” said SLO FFA president senior Sophie Maino.  

 Last April at the state level competition, senior Greta Carlson won first in the Prepared Public Speaking contest. The Novice Parliamentary Procedure team placed first, and juniors Megan Fragasso, Molly Massman, Lily Svetich, and Ariana King won first as well in the Agriscience Research Project competition, qualifying all of them to move on to compete at nationals.

 This past week, after months of hard work, practice, and effort, all of the SLO FFA members competed and did well.

 “The competition at Nationals was extremely tough being up against the best public speakers in the U.S., but I felt honored to represent California and was inspired by other FFA member’s interests in agriculture,” said Carlson.

 Chapter adviser and science teacher Anna Bates achieved her Honorary American Degree. King and Svetich placed second in the nation for their agriscience research project. In this competition students come with a project idea, complete hours of research, and run tests. The topics are up to the students to choose, and what they choose is usually something facing the agriculture industry. Then they present their findings to a panel of judges.

 “We are always proud of how hard these individuals work on their competitions and contests, and they represented SLO and California well. Our students are all such well behaved dedicated kids and we are very impressed with everything they have done,” said Maino.

 The SLO FFA is gearing up to start another year of preparing its teams and individuals with the goal of competing at the national level.