Submitted by HFCS Communications
With the new Agriculture program at Hoosick Falls, the Future Farmers of America (FFA) club restarted for the first time in decades during the 2021-22 school year. The new program has afforded students the opportunity to compete against other schools in a handful of academic events, including public speaking and presenting about careers in agriculture. Hoosick Falls competed at three events this year: sub-state, regionals and states, with each round a qualifier into the next.
Freshman Jessica Haynes rose above the rest, becoming Hoosick Falls’ first state champion with a first-place effort in the category of Senior Creed. The Creed, written by E.M. Tiffany in 1930, is a five-paragraph belief for what the FFA stood for. In the Creed event, students are tasked with memorizing the document verbatim and also answering questions from a panel of judges about the document. Haynes said she hopes that her result will get more people involved in FFA going forward. “A lot of people don’t know about the FFA or what we do, so it got our name out there,” Haynes said. “Maybe next year, we’ll have even more students.”