By NATE KING
JC Post
On Monday, Junction City High School hosted an FFA legislative breakfast event attended by Kansas Sen. Usha Reddi and Kansas Reps. Jeff Underhill and Nate Butler. Junction City Vice-Mayor Ronna Larson and Geary County Commissioner Trish Giordano were also in attendance.
The event aimed to not only promote civic engagement among students, but also to allow lawmakers to hear how FFA is thriving at Junction City High School.
JCHS FFA adviser Laura Miller spoke about how career technical education (CTE) is giving students more options when it comes to post-secondary education
"The purpose of CTE is to help students do some career exploration and create and build skills that they're going to use to join the workforce," Miller said. "Whether a student goes to a four-year, a two-year, a technical college, they are learning how to do some of those skills. They are learning 'What interests me?' in that controlled setting of a classroom experience."
Miller has taught for nearly 17 years and has taught at Junction City High School for the past eight years. She has taught biology, animal science, natural resources, agriculture science and zoology. Miller said one of the many reasons why she loves Junction City High School is thanks to the academy structure.
"We have our freshman success academy, where these students are learning a little bit about the career clusters, learning a little bit about what CTE is and are kind of dabbling in it. Then when they're sophomores through seniors, they join an academy based on the pathway that they want. And also involvement in career technical student organizations like FFA, like FBLA, FCCLA, SkillsUSA, that give kids a chance to showcase those skills, and like a friendly competition. I like to tell my kids, I would rather you figure it out now than be a junior in college, do an internship and decide, 'I just wasted three years of my life.' "
During her remarks, Reddi said that this was her first time visiting Junction City's new high school.
"It is a massive building, but it is so beautiful. Where you invest shows what your priorities are. If you invest in public schools, you are showing the students that they are a priority. The teachers and students are proud to go to school here."
JCHS FFA Secretary and Geary County Farm Bureau Ambassador Ava Oentrich said her ag issues team competed at the national FFA convention and placed in the silver bracket.
"We go to contests at least once a month. Twice a month, we do some sort of contests, and we went to national convention this past year where we had one ag issues team that talked about the proposed meat packing facility," Oentrich said. 'We did an informational skit about the pros and cons and we really went in depth with that and talking about all the things that it would effect in our community."
Miller said the JCHS FFA officially recieved its charter in 2018.
"Since then, we've only grown — from the first 20 kids that signed their names to the 67 kids who are now on our roster. We've done a lot in the past seven years. These kids that are here today are a part of my officer team. ... They are here because they believe in the future of agriculture," Miller said.
With only a few weeks left until Sine Dine, the Latin phrase referring to adjournment of the legislative session, Kansas lawmakers were anxious to travel back to their districts in order to meet with constituents and discuss the status of legislation.
Butler joked that unlike most high school students who get one week of vacation for spring break, legislators get two weeks.
"We worked hard," Butler said. "We had about 500 bills that were presented to the House of Representatives this year. Both gentlemen and Usha are freshman legislators — freshman that have been baptized by fire. So I don't consider myself a freshman really anymore."
In addition, the event presented an opportunity for the Geary County Farm Bureau President Luke Erichsen to present Mikayla Dibben with a certificate and scholarship for her completion of Geary County Farm Bureau's FFA Ambassador program.
"We extend an invitation out to FFA students, as juniors and seniors, to come and be an ambassador for our board. They pretty much do everything like a sitting board member, but actually vote," Erichsen said.
The breakfast was sponsored by Central National Bank.
