2024-2025 Barren County FFA officer team.
By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
The Barren County FFA chapter have a lot planned for the week.
National FFA — Future Farmers of America — Week is from Feb. 15 through Feb. 22 and serves as a time “to share what FFA is and the impact it has on members every day.”
“It is simply a week of celebration, recognition and advocacy,” said FFA sponsor and high school agriculture teacher Andy Joe Moore. “Essentially, it’s a week of awareness that FFA is still strong, still growing.”
The roughly 250 Barren County FFA members are observing an abridged FFA Week — opting to celebrate the week from Feb. 17 to Feb. 21 — but that doesn’t mean they won’t be busy.
Kicking off the week-long celebration is the new farmers and first responders appreciation breakfast. Moore said this is the first year that first responders have been highlighted during this breakfast. Moore said the chapter received a $5,000 grant through the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Raising Hope program, which focuses on farm safety, mental health and farmer rescues.
“For two or three years, during FFA week, our students have wanted to give back to the ag community; they’ve wanted to provide a breakfast farmers could come to and not be charged – just a social gathering where our kids could thank them for what they do,” Moore said. “We had an opportunity to team up with…Raising Hope…that also sheds light on how valuable first responders are in the ag community”
“We wrote a grant…we were funded and what we proposed was to take our farmers’ breakfast and merge it with a first responder breakfast,” he added.
Part of the grant, Moore said, involved minting Barren County-specific “challenge coins” that FFA members will hand out to breakfast attendees — assuming they arrive in time — and allows them to create small first-aid kits for farmers, each with a personalized note written by an FFA member.
Moore said there will be two community members, who have been affected by farm mental health or safety, will deliver inspirational messages during the breakfast as well.
He added this event is not exclusive and anyone from the community is welcome. The breakfast and presentation will take place on Feb. 17 in the Trojan Academy’s gymnasium beginning at 7:30 a.m.
On Tuesday, Feb. 18, the FFA parent night and FFA Alumni crockpot cookoff/silent auction will begin at 5 p.m. at the Trojan Academy. Moore said this is a “fairly large community event,” which will have the FFA chapter members competing, a crockpot potluck and a silent auction.
“We have such a large chapter that we always have multiple people that want to compete in the same contests, so we hold a local event,” Moore said. “That’s what this is, the kids are going to be giving speeches and a few other contests…while they’re doing that the alumni is hosting a meal.”
Even if someone decides not to attend in-person, they can bid on the silent auction items using the chapter’s temporary website. There are 87 items listed for auction that span from gift cards and pocket knives to toys and passes to the National Corvette Museum. Moore said the money goes to the FFA Alumni group, who in turn help with the FFA chapter.
“While the kids are doing contests the parents are eating and they’re browsing the silent auction,” he said.
People who bring a crockpot dish will get to eat for free, Moore said, while those who do not will have to pay for a $6 meal ticket.
On Wednesday, Feb. 19, the FFA Alumni group will visit ninth-grade agriculture classes and, as the penultimate event, FFA members will give a brief presentation during the monthly Cattlemen’s Association meeting on Feb. 20 in the Trojan Academy gymnasium.
“It’s a night to highlight individual students and their successful [Supervised Agricultural Experiences],” Moore said.
During this week, FFA members will also be dressed up, culminating in red, white and blue day on Feb. 21 in honor of George Washington’s 293rd birthday, who is a prominent figure in FFA since the first national headquarters was located on his farm.
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