WHHS FFA welcomes Greenhands with a night of fun
The West Holmes FFA Greenhands were welcomed into the club with a fun-filled night that included plenty of activities.
Becoming a member of the West Holmes FFA Club includes plenty of activities when it comes to the introductory evening of the annual Greenhand Lock-In.
On Saturday, Nov. 9, the West Holmes FFA Chapter held its annual Greenhand Lock-In. There were 20 freshmen present including Chloe Kaser, Reece Anderson, Cadence Martie, Ellectra Beachey, Rayne Larimore, Cameron Hinton, Andrew Weaver, Madison Mittman, Emma McDonnell, Bridget Umstead, Mia Spencer, Courtney Crider, Anna Towner, Natalie Lauriha, Gabby Fowler, Payton Taylor, Makenzie Mast, Natalie Lint, Kendra Hall and Wyatt Troyer.
Presenters included officers Andi Schuch, Alex Pringle, Garrett Fowler, Jenna Sheldon, Shane Lorentz, Gabby Yates, Blake Patterson and Logan Van Dalen and seniors Hayden Smith, Casey Ogi, Colby Long, Keith Hawkins, Ian Barr, Madison Pearce-Laferty, Miley Snow and Ava Eberhard, who all helped plan and conduct the activities for the night.
At the Lock-In, we started with name games. Then the freshmen attended a state officer workshop presented by state officers Carter Boyd and Ryan Bowsher. The seniors and officers educated the freshmen on opportunities in the FFA. Some of those stations were Leadership, Fruit Sale, In the Classroom, Recordkeeping, Official Dress, Shop Work, Independent Study, Community Service and Being an Officer.
Next, the first group of seniors shared their favorite FFA memories and advice to the younger members. After that, they had free time to play board games, basketball or kickball. Also, Greenhands dressed seniors and officers with paper to see who could resemble official dress the closest based on memory.
After that, the group participated in an FFA escape room, where the Greenhand members had to find and solve FFA questions to be the first to “escape.” After the escape room, they had pizza and held Greenhand elections.
The 2024-25 Greenhand officers are President Mia Spencer, Vice President Natalie Lint, secretary Natalie Lauriha, treasurer Andrew Weaver, reporter Anna Towner, sentinel Reece Anderson, student adviser Payton Taylor and historian Makenzie Mast.
Next, the seniors and officers educated the Greenhands on other FFA opportunities including the importance of being involved, trips/camps, dairy and horse judging, job interview and public speaking, parli and ag sales, ag comm and ag issues, tractor trouble shooting and ag mech, food science and dairy foods, and general livestock and poultry.
Following, the second group of seniors shared their memories and advice before we had more free time for them to do line dancing, dodgeball and play board games. After free time the officers each had leadership games for the freshmen, and they made Greenhand T-shirts. These T-shirts were hand-painted for them to wear at school on the day of initiation.
We had an officer scavenger hunt for the Greenhands to get to know the officers and played a lot of different games to keep our energy levels up.
Everyone was released at 7 a.m. to go home and get a good day’s sleep.