Amanda Cederquist and Addison Pranger had already had a pretty great Wednesday night March 5, having just helped their Montague Wildcats defeat Whitehall in the girls basketball district semifinals. It got even better when Cederquist received a text message from Kate Feuerstein, Montague FFA advisor, saying the group had just won the national chapter award at the state convention in East Lansing.
"I turned to (Addison) and said, 'We won!'" Cederquist said. "She goes, 'I know; we beat Whitehall.' I said, 'No, we won national chapter!' It was a double win for us that night."
The two had to leave the convention a night early to prepare for the basketball game, but they and Greta Auch delivered the presentation that won Montague the award - the rough equivalent of a state championship. In addition, FFA members Grace Torsch and Annie Jensen won state awards in public speaking, capping another successful year for the student organization.
Montague vied with fellow top-3 finishers Hopkins and Lapeer for the national chapter award; Cederquist said the three have been the top state FFA performers of late.
"Us three the last couple years have been the top three, and it gets very competitive up there," Cederquist said. "We're such big chapters and we're so involved and we have staple events we do every year."
Cederquist is president of the Montague chapter, Auch is secretary, and Pranger is a senior and FFA veteran, which is how they came to deliver the presentation at state. Cederquist has family FFA ties and joined the M-CREW, a student group that helps clean up around the school, in middle school on her way to the high school chapter. Auch was sucked into the FFA program when she and friends won a Greenhand award - the first such award a new FFA member can earn - in eighth grade.
The presentation revolved around the Montague chapter's success meeting its goals of the previous year - and also its plans on how to meet the goals it didn't attain. Cederquist and Auch said they both felt very prepared for the presentation, which helped limit any nervousness.
"When we're about to present I feel nervous, but all the effort we put in and the advisors spending time with us takes some of the pressure off," Auch said.
Cederquist referred to two tentpole events the Montague chapter hosts each year - Giving for Goats, which is an event that helps recycle Christmas trees so local farm goats can enjoy the leftovers, and Mother's Day planting, where FFA members use the planting of flowers as Mother's Day gifts to teach elementary school students about agriculture.
"Our biggest goal in the FFA chapter is to have greater outreach in our school and our community," Auch said. "(We try to) have events that impact the community and the kids in our school."
The state convention also featured the awards won by Torsch and Jensen. Torsch took home the top prize in extemporaneous public speaking, while Jensen won in public speaking - both, Jensen said, in their first time competing in that category. The wins enabled them both to participate in the national FFA convention in Indianapolis, set for late October.
As the extra word implies, Torsch's was the more spontaneous of the two speeches; competitors are given their choice of two agricultural topics and receive 30 minutes to put together a 3-5 minute speech about it using the knowledge they have. Torsch delivered a speech about the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and regulatory concerns surrounding it. It was a topic Torsch was very interested in, she said, so it was an easy choice to write about it.
"Agriscience and technology is really interesting to me because (in) the innovation, there are concerns - not so much downsides, but things to be aware of," Torsch said.
Torsch said she felt confident in the pacing of her speech, though she admitted to some nervousness in walking around the stage delivering it. However, she felt the post-speech questions portion went very well and was confident she'd done a good job.
Torsch, who has family history in agriculture - her grandparents owned a dairy farm and now raise sheep and chickens - also won a state star in agribusiness award thanks to her Grace's Garden Maintenance business. She completed two FFA interviews to earn the award. She said she has seven clients and her job is essentially to "take care of everything outside their house."
"It started out as a community service project," Torsch said. "I was helping with spring cleanup and they asked for someone to do it over the summer. I really like the flexibility and the communications I get to have with different people."
Jensen won her award giving a speech she had the entire FFA season to complete. It's required to be 6.5-8 minutes in length, plus a five-minute Q&A period afterwards. She chose a topic she has some experience with - hearing loss and agriculture.
Jensen herself is slightly hard of hearing, she said, and she has long been interested in how that affects farmers, having been involved in American Sign Language as well. She was especially interested in looking at preventative measures they can take to limit hearing loss. She moved from Chicago to a farm at age seven.
"Not a lot of people know about it," Jensen said. "How many people are damaging their hearing without knowing it? That could be a big medical bill compared to (investing in) hearing protection. It's letting people know about what is happening when they don't realize it is."
In her research, Jensen found that a pig's squeal can be up to 150 decibels, a number that can cause hearing damage after 15-20 minutes. Tractors, of course, can get even louder, and as she noted, farmers can be on those machines for far longer than 15 minutes.
"It can be devastating to your ears," Jensen said. "We don't notice how much sound we're being exposed to every day."
