Inside this issue:

Holiday Social 2

Ice Skating 3

Officer Message 3

FFA Week 4

Wildlife CDE 5

Remind 101 5

Stuff the Bus 6

January 2016 Volume 4, Issue 6

COVINGTON, GA – Members of the West Jackson Middle FFA chapter attended the Georgia FFA Associa-tion’s Discovery Conference on Janu-ary 21-22, 2016, at the Georgia FFA-FCCLA Center near Covington. The Discovery Conference is designed for middle school students and allows them to meet other members from across the state and get excited about the opportunities that FFA has to of-fer.

At the conference, FFA mem-bers were challenged to expand their comfort zones, set goals, and realize the importance of agriculture in to-day’s world. Members learned about the history of the FFA, took part in an FFA quiz competition and met with nearly 300 members from across the state of Georgia. The Georgia state FFA officer team presented the con-ference and said they worked to show young agricultural education students the many benefits of becoming a member of the FFA.

“The Discovery Conference is an amazing opportunity for young FFA members,” said State FFA Secre-tary, Ian Bennett. “The conference provides an engaging, interactive ex-perience for students that attend, and we hope it will ignite their involve-ment in the FFA throughout middle and high school.”

West Jackson Middle FFA Members Attend Discovery Conference

Those West Jackson Middle FFA members attending the confer-ence included: Noel Plunkett, Savan-nah Van Buren, Ashlyn Tomlin, Katelyn Howard, Iris Thao, Ad-disyn Aguilar, Ella Hardegree, Faith Hollis, Sa-vannah McGee, Hannah White, Thomas Bailey, Jay Dailey, Mi-chael Burel, Logan Cantrell. With more than 35,000 members, the Georgia FFA Association is the third largest state association in the nation. The National FFA Organization, formerly known as the Future Farm-ers of America, changed its name in 1988 to reflect the growth and diver-sity of agriculture. The mission of the FFA organization is to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leader-ship, personal growth, and ca-reer success through agricul-tural education.

Newsletter West Jackson Middle FFA

Page 2 West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter

West Jackson Middle FFA Chapter Holds Annual Holiday Social

The West Jackson Middle FFA held its annual Holi-day Social on Thursday, December 3rd. FFA mem-bers attended a short meeting afterschool and en-joyed a holiday movie. While there, FFA members created their own Christmas ornaments as they min-gled with others

At 6PM, parents and guests joined us for a meal and fellowship. Each family was responsible for bringing a side dish for our meal while the FFA chapter pro-vided the drinks and the meat. The FFA officers in-troduced themselves and Mrs. Davis made announce-ments. There were over 70 people in attendance!

Page 3 Volume 4, Issue 6

My name is Charlie Brooksher, and I am your WJMS FFA Sentinel for the 2015-2016 year. One my favorite parts about FFA is showing livestock, and on of the best parts about show-ing livestock is the State Show in Feburary. I show heifers, but you can also show pigs, sheep, and goats. Both the cows and pigs show in February. There are many things that go into preparing cows for the show, but I really enjoy fitting the most. Fitting is getting the cow’s hair ready for the show including using a comb and spray adhesive to pull the leg hair up to make them look their best. After pulling the hair up, you then have to clip any hair that is out of place. Last year, I will competed in the fitting contest with two other ex-hibitors, and we won belt buckles! On Thursday, we compete in Showanship where the judge is looking at how we work with our animals. Friday is the heifer show, and the judges are judging the composition of our heifers and comparing them to others in the class. The Steer show is on Saturday, and those are shown by weight and are judged on their market-ability.

Officer’s Message

Twenty-nine FFA members from West Jackson Middle School recently traveled to the Foundry Pavilion Ice Skating. The Foundry Pavilion Ice Skating Center is located at The Classic Center in Athens, GA and hosts open public skating as well as hockey practices for the UGA Hockey team. Before leaving for the ice skating event, FFA members enjoyed a short meeting and fellowship. The members then traveled to the Mall of Georgia for dinner. The members enjoyed over an hour of skating, and a good time was had by all! The officers and advisors for each or-ganization look forward to planning another ice skating trip in the fu-ture.

WJMS FFA members attending this event were: Victoria Comfort, Tris-tan Kinder, Larry Sigman, Bryce Ad-ams, Kyler Smith, Charlie Brook-sher, Alyssa Bradley, Logan Brown, Hannah Barrett, Sabrina Laudermilk, Faith Hollis, Ashlyn Tomlin, Savanna Van Buren, Sa-mara Broy, Carys Thao, Elizabeth Garmon, Lauren Segraves, Ella Hardegree, Hailey Sawyer, Melody Bray, Sydney Wiggins, Hannah White, Savannah Page, Melody Moua, Anna Kate McCrary, Tiffany Holly, Cassidy Rowan, Makayla Williams, and Rebecca Wright.

West Jackson Middle FFA Members Go Ice Skating

West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter

Page 4 West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter

West Jackson Middle FFA Chapter Plans FFA Week

National FFA Week will be held on

Monday, February 29th through Friday, March 4th

The WJMS FFA Week Committee has planned a jam packed week of activities, so there are lots of ways for you to get involved!

FFA Homeroom Challenge! - Earn points for your homeroom throughout the week, and the homeroom with the most points wins! - Your homeroom can earn points for the fol-lowing: 1) Dress up days: 1 point per student and 5 points for your homeroom teacher

2) Trivia Questions: 5 points per correct answer

3) Donating food items to help Stuff the Bus! - 1 item = 1 point - Check out the attached information!

Monday, February 29th

Dress up as your favorite superhero!

Tuesday, March 1st

FFA Member Appreciation Day

- Stop by the Ag room for a breakfast treat!

“Souper” Community Service Meeting after school until 5PM

Wednesday, March 2nd

Blue and Gold Day

- Dress up in as much blue and gold as you can!

Thursday, March 3rd

Squad Day!

- Get your squad together and dress alike for the day!

- If you can get your whole homeroom to dress alike, you can earn 20 bonus points!

Friday, March 4th

FFA Tshirt Day

- Wear your favorite FFA Tshirt!

Page 5 Volume 4, Issue 6

Four members of the West Jackson Middle FFA Chapter competed in the Ar-ea II Wildlife Career Development Event. This event was held at Banks County High School on February 12th. For the Wildlife CDE, four students must become proficient in four different areas of wildlife management in-cluding aquatics and pond management, whitetail deer management, gen-eral wildlife identification, and game bird identification. WJMS FFA members compet-ing in this event were Jack Wall, Trevor Slaick, Michael Howard, and Alyssa Bradley. Each student’s score is ranked among all the competitors in his/her area, and each stu-dent’s score is added together to get the team’s composite score. The WJMS FFA Wildlife team placed 9th out of more than 30 Junior teams earning them a gold ranking.

West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter

WJMS FFA Members Compete in Wildlife Career Development

West Jackson Middle FFA

West Jackson Middle School

400 Gum Springs Church Rd

Jefferson, GA 30549

Phone: 706-654-2775

Extension: 503

E-mail: adavis@jackson.k12.ga.us

Website: wjmsffa.wix.com/wjmsffa

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Page 6 West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter

West Jackson Middle

STUFF THE BUS

Please donate and help

The West Jackson Middle FFA Chapter will be collecting can food items during our National FFA Week Celebration on February 29th—March 4th, and we are trying to literally stuff a school bus with can food items! We are challenging each homeroom at West Jackson Middle School to help in this endeavor! Throughout FFA Week we would like for each homeroom to collect can foods. On March 4th, WJMS FFA will collect and count all the can food items and declare a winner! The winning school homeroom will receive a breakfast party the following week, and the teacher will receive a special prize, too! Please feel free to share information about this can food drive with anyone you think would help donate! No donation is too small!

Contact WJMS FFA Advisor, April Davis, with questions! adavis@jackson.k12.ga.us or 706-654-2775.

FFA

The food bank we are working with appreciates all donations but prefers: Any canned vegetable, Peanut butter, Jelly (plastic), Saltines, Ramen noodles, Gummy snacks