Montague High School’s FFA chapter is consistently among the best in the state, and the students and advisers in the chapter proved it again in February by earning the Top National Chapter award for Michigan.
Montague FFA members Anna Woller and Aurelia Ambriz led the presentation at the FFA state convention in Lansing to secure the award. The top three chapters in the state are invited to the convention each year to present their case for the chapter award - Montague was joined by Hopkins and Lapeer County’s chapters.
In addition to the chapter’s award, its engagement chair, Blake Herremans, was named State Star in Agricultural Placement at the convention.
The hours put in by FFA members certainly are worthy of recognition. On top of the actual activities the FFA participates in, Woller said she and Ambriz spent many hours putting together their presentation.
“We take a lot of pride in it,” Woller said of the chapter’s success at the state level. “We like to joke around with the other chapters about being the best chapter in the state. We get bragging rights, almost, for any argument we have another chapter. We take it really seriously.”
Woller said she and Ambriz were especially proud of not having a script for the presentation, as one of the requirements on the FFA’s rubric for judging them was that they appear free-flowing and unscripted. She said in discussions with other chapters, she and Ambriz learned the other two presentations did have a script, which made them more confident theirs would be the chapter honored in the end.
Makenna Schwass is one of the FFA advisers on staff at Montague, along with Kate Feuerstein, Maddie Kaminski and Sherri Lemmen. She said the FFA’s activities include several that happen during school hours, such as the trips to Oehrli Elementary School to teach students about seeds and growing plants as part of a planting exercise that produces flowers to give to moms on Mother’s Day. There are also those that take extracurricular time, like spending each year’s homecoming week collecting food, hygiene and other products to donate to the Muskegon Rescue Mission. Schwass said the chapter typically collects about 1,500 items to donate each year.
Community service is a common thread in the FFA’s activities, as seen in those donations as well as the Region 5 Rake-Up.
“Every chapter in Region 5 goes out in the fall and rakes up the leaves,” Schwass said. “We rake the cemetery here in Montague.”
FFA no longer officially stands for Future Farmers of America, but agriculture is still a focus for the group, and Herremans exemplifies that commitment as much as any student involved. In addition to being an officer for the school’s chapter, Herremans keeps very busy most of the year working on farms himself.
“Woller Shady Lane farms is a family farm, so I’m over there every day, 40 hours a week on top of my regular job,” Herremans said. “Hayes Cherry (Orchard) is a seasonal job, so I work 100 hours in those two weeks (of peak season).”
Only in the winters do things slow down enough for Herremans to enjoy other activities; this winter he played on the Wildcats’ varsity basketball team.
All that work filled the FFA criteria of what it calls Supervised Agricultural Experiences for Herremans’ award. When he was chosen as a top-6 applicant for the award, Herremans did a home interview with the FFA, and once selected to be in the top three, he went to Lansing Farm Bureau for more interviews that helped determine the final winner along with fellow finalists Wade Messing of Ubly and Jordan Schave from North Huron.
Perhaps unsurprisingly after all that work, Herremans said he did not feel pressure during the interview process, knowing he had done the best he could. He did, though, say he was nervous waiting for the final results to be announced.
Herremans added to Montague’s history of individual success at the FFA convention; just last year, Tobias Morse earned the Star in Agriscience recognition.
“I met Blake as a squirrely, wide-eyed seventh-grader whose mind and mouth both ran a million miles a minute,” Feuerstein said in a press release regarding Herremans’ award. “Watching Blake’s growth from that kid to a young adult who is fun, easygoing, committed and who gives his time to help younger members has been a treat for me.”
Woller credited the FFA advisers with helping everything run smoothly and helping guide the students to success.
“After every event, we have reflection sheets we fill out so incoming officers can see what they have to change for the next event,” Woller said. “A lot of our events are based on tradition, so they’ve been going on for many years before I was in the chapter. We know what goes well in those events and we know how to run it smoothly and make it successful.”
