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Witzel, DeWaal Qualify for State FFA

by Janeth Perez-Medina on February 23, 2017

On Thursday, February 16th, four FFA members, Matthisen Witzel, Janeth Perez-Medina, Coy DeWaal, and Mason Schmid along with advisor Tiffany Poet, attended the District Speech Contest and Selection Day in Natoma, Kansas. These members have been working on their speech for the since the beginning of December.  These were the same speeches they present in Manhattan at the beginning of the month. All four members wrote, memorized and presented a prepared speech varying in length from 3-6 minutes depending on the grade level. Additionally, DeWaal and Witzel each participated in Extemporaneous Speaking. For this speech they drew a topic and had 30 minutes to prepare and memorize a 4-6 minute speech. All four members were in the top half of their competition rooms and advanced onto the finals. The top placer for the day was Matthisen Witzel, placing first in her extemporaneous. Additionally, Witzel placed fifth with her prepared speech that compared FFA to her experiences with Agriculture in Brazil. DeWaal placed fifth with his extemporaneous speech. Both DeWaal and Witzel won the opportunity to compete in the Extemporaneous Speech Contest at State FFA Convention at the end of May. Overall, the team placed fifth out of 16 schools proving that hard work is rewarded.

Saint Francis has a representative slated for district office. Matthisen Witzel have her first interview she is slated to be District Reporter/Sentinel. Being slated means that she is one of the top eight candidates running for six district offices. She will present a speech at District Banquet and delegates will vote to elect them into office. Makayla Rogers applied for her Kansas State FFA Degree and made it past the district check, making her the newest candidate from St Francis. Makayla completed records and an application about her placement Supervise Agricultural Education Program that consists of her working over the past four years at Park Hill Restaurant, Farm S and Vase of Grace.