(By Atlantic FFA Reporter Aspen Niklasen) – Each year, the Southwest District and Iowa FFA officers plan and facilitate Greenhand Fire Up Conferences for FFA members in the Southwest District. The workshops were leadership focused with an emphasis on the experiences that occur in the lives of beginning high school students These workshops are geared toward engaging members into FFA as the year kicks up. Atlantic welcomed FFA chapters from all over the Southwest District on Wednesday, March 10th.

Front Row left to right
Roth DenBeste, Thomas Leonard, Tate Niklasen, Colton Rudy, Colton Becker;
Back Row left to right
Chris Keegan, McKenna Sonntag, Lola Comes, Dani Bennett

Atlantic FFA member Dylan Comes and Atlantic FFA Alumni member Tyler Comes helped facilitate the event. Dylan the newly elected Southwest State Treasurer for the Iowa FFA Association, helped with other officers prepare and facilitated workshops of: authenticity, balancing priorities, communication, and FFA opportunities – in order to provide the first-year FFA members with skills they would use both within and outside of FFA. Comes said “It was a lot of fun learning to how to facilitate a workshop and work with the current State FFA President Mickayla McGill”

The goal was to engage FFA members in learning about the tools that would allow them to be successful in anything they are part of through high school and beyond. The goal was to engage FFA members in learning about the tools that would allow them to be successful in anything they are part of through high school and beyond. Chris Keegan, a member from the Atlantic chapter that attended the event, said that “It was a great way to meet new people and we did a lot of new activities to introduce ourselves.” Other member Thomas Leonard that attended said, “I learned that there was a lot more to FFA than just farming. I also liked meeting new people and I had a lot of fun.”