Scherff embraces public speaking side of FFA as chapter president

While Aydenn Scherff didn’t grow up on a working farm, he has spent his life around cattle and now has his own small herd. That has prepared him well for being president of the Hampton FFA chapter this year and helping to oversee the famous Hawk Herd beef animal lab. 
“I didn’t grow up on a farm where we grow crops, it was just a small cattle herd, but I did find myself with the opportunity to work for a farmer who farms about 3,000 acres, and he also owns some cattle,” Scherff said. “So I got to see just a larger scale of what I do with my own cattle herd. Although I didn’t grow up on a farm, I’ve just been around it my whole life.”
The Hampton senior’s family has a small acreage midway between Aurora and Hampton about three miles north of Highway 34. Over the past several years he has acquired his own beef herd consisting of two cows, a heifer, a young steer and two older steers. Scherff has shown the cattle at the county fair (and sometimes at the State Fair) for several years, and this past year he helped a friend enjoy his first experience of showing beef at the county fair. He has also won awards at the county fair with his cattle.
Scherff’s involvement in FFA started when he was a freshman and he calls that his “testing year,” an experiment to investigate the program and find out what his interests were and what he was good at. Signing up to be an officer with the chapter, he was elected parliamentarian his first year, and he said he most enjoys the public speaking aspects of FFA.
“And also I really enjoyed the idea of some of the competitions like the Leadership Development Events (LDEs),” he said. “I do extemporaneous speaking in regular speech season, and for LDEs and Career Development Events (CDEs), there’s just so many options. We’ve made it to state in like nursery and landscape the last few years. And then there’s land- and livestock judging – just a lot of really interesting, diverse parts that really drew my attention.”
Scherff became vice president of the chapter in his junior year and made it to state in nursery, landscape, extemporaneous speaking and was an alternate for livestock judging.

A rocky start
This year Scherff has qualified for state again in extemporaneous speaking and will get his state degree at the state convention in March. However, he admits his senior year didn’t get off to the greatest start when he forgot to bring his signature blue corduroy FFA jacket on the bus trip to the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind., in October. 
“I still get made fun of for it – ‘the president of Hampton FFA forgot his FFA jacket’ – but I wouldn’t change it, knowing what came of it,” he said. “Because I managed to make friends with a lot of people from like Logan View (Hooper north of Fremont) and Pender, which are schools I never would talk too much except for if we went there and for my jacket.”
Scherff said the bus carrying FFA students from around the state was in Lincoln when he realized his jacket wasn’t in his luggage and he went into a panic wondering what he was going to wear at the convention? He said fortunately one of the female advisors from Logan View had an extra jacket which she loaned him. 
“So I had this women’s jacket, it looked like a crop top FFA jacket,” he said. “But I never would have gotten to meet some of the interesting people and friends that I now know if I hadn’t forgotten it. So it’s embarrassing, but at least something good came of it.”
He also said he hasn’t forgotten his jacket again.

Following a star
Scherff expressed his gratitude to Hampton FFA sponsor Joel Miller, who is well known across the state for his work with ag education and runs a tight ship at Hampton. 
“Mr. Miller is really important as far as Nebraska FFA goes,” he said. “He runs the land judging throughout the whole state, and he does a lot for other parts.”
He said that association has opened doors for him across the state, and he said the name of Miller’s daughter Macy, who was FFA president at Hampton last year, also gets attention in FFA circles. 
“Every once a while, I start talking to someone and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, Macy Miller’s from that school.’ I’m like, ‘Yes, Macy Miller’s from this school.’”
Asked whether he believes he is on track to get his American Degree in FFA, Scherff said earning the state degree puts him in good shape for that award. “Nebraska has one of the hardest state degrees to get, because they have high requirements,” he said. “You have to have a certain amount of points, and you get points for  a state level activity or a district level activity. And Nebraska has the highest amount of points you have to have. And then they have community service, and then SAE hours and all sorts of different sections that you have to meet, so I’m actually in pretty good position to get my American degree, just a few more signatures, pretty much, and then I’m good.”
Scherff’s involvement and motivation extends to more than just FFA at Hampton. Other school activities have included the school’s speech team, one act, robotics, drones, track, band and choir. He had planned to play football with the Hawks, but after getting injured during early-season practices in both his freshman and sophomore years, he settled for being a team manager. 
Outside of school, Scherff is involved with Hamilton Community Foundation’s Youth Involved in Philanthropy (YIP) program, plays with the Aurora Methodist Church bell choir and serves on the praise team at West Side Covenant Church.

Future plans
Asked what he plans to do post high school, Scherff said he wants to study some form of engineering through the ROTC program at UNL his first year and then may attempt to get accepted at a military academy when he’s of age to apply.
“If I do go the academy route, we’ll see which one takes me,” he said. “Because all of the academies are hard to get into. I think the Air Force has like a 2.5 percent acceptance rate, which is outrageously low, but all of them are sub-10 percent acceptance rate.” 
Scherff said while Hampton’s FFA chapter is not as large as some, he’s proud to say it is an extremely active group with numerous awards to show for it. 
“I hate it when I see chapters that they have 30 some members or 100 some members, but that doesn’t matter, because there’s five people that do absolutely everything, and that’s the only reason they’re good at anything,” he said. “I feel like Hampton is better than most because everyone at least tries to participate in something. If you’re in FFA, you either go do livestock judging, you do land judging, at some point you pick a CDE to participate in. I like that. Hampton has been good at that, and I hope they continue that in the future.”
Scherff is the son of Monty and Terry Scherff.