Senior grateful for new FFA chapter
With the help of its first ever FFA president, Cooper Reeson, the newly formed Giltner FFA chapter has gained a lot of traction within the school and community during this school year. Reaching the half-year mark since its inception, the FFA president said the program has found a good home within Giltner High School.
“A lot of kids here are looking to do stuff in ag,” Reeson explained. “I think we’ve been wanting (FFA) for a while and a lot kids were excited and were chomping at the bit to go out.”
With 11 years of experience in 4-H and with his father, Kevan’s example of his work at Pioneer Seed and in his own farming operations, there was no ‘if’ for Reeson to be one of the first to join the new chapter.
“It always interested me and I wanted to learn more about it,” Reeson explained. “Then they added the new program. As a senior for the first year, I just wanted to get it off on the right start.”
Reeson was one of 21 Giltner students to join the program and represent the school in its first year in Nebraska FFA. After being interviewed by FFA advisor, Kelsey Schulte, Giltner Supt. Nick Mumm and his former guidance counselor, Ashley McCarter, Reeson became Giltner’s first FFA president.
“I wanted to start off on the right track,” he stated. “I felt like I could do a good job of influencing kids to go out in the future and just set them on the right path.”
Like the rest of the FFA officers in the region, Reeson and the other Giltner officers began their summer by participating in Nebraska’s Chapter Officer Leadership Training (COLT) in Aurora to help develop the teamwork and leadership skills needed to lead their new chapter.
“Attending COLT was a lot of fun,” he commented. “It was my first taste of FFA and it got me really excited for it. My favorite part was just hanging out and having fun with the other officers from different schools.”
Having gained new insight into FFA, Reeson was determined to take charge of his role as president by “being a good leader, getting kids to go out, making sure we’re doing things the right way and keeping kids accountable.”
In addition to FFA and the new ag classes recently added at Giltner, Reeson and his classmates had many opportunities to expand their agricultural knowledge.
“We started off by going to Husker Harvest Days,” Reeson said. “We’ve done land judging, we’ve done livestock judging, we did the Leadership Development Events (LDE) and we did community work such as hamburger feeds to raise money throughout the community.”
While there have been many successes, Reeson said there have also been challenges along the way.
“I wouldn’t say complicated, but there’s a lot more to it than you actually think and in the first year you learn all the rules, the official dress code, the CDEs, like livestock judging and land judging,” he explained. “A lot of these other schools have been doing it for however long and they learned how to do it as freshmen. With this being our first year, we just started out basically as babies in FFA. We’ve started from scratch and we just had to learn that way.”
Reeson acknowledged that the progress he and his chapter had made in the first year wouldn’t have been possible without the help of their FFA advisor, Schulte.
“My advisor definitely helped me the most in working me into it and setting me up for success from the beginning,” he commented.
Throughout the first semester of the program, Reeson has had his own successes and has helped others to reach milestones as well.
Representing Giltner FFA at the Hamilton County Fair last summer, Reeson competed in market barrow where he won both a purple ribbon and Reserve Champion.
In November, Reeson participated in the District 7 Livestock Evaluation in Central City, where he placed 19th out of 143 students in the senior division and helping his senior team place 8th out of 15 teams.
“The prospect I’ve enjoyed the most is livestock because I’ve shown animals in 4-H my whole life and that is what I was the most experienced at,” he explained. “I ended up doing pretty good at livestock judging.”
At the chapter’s first FFA ceremonies recently,
Reeson received his jacket and Greenhand Degree. “It was really cool receiving it and it made me feel accomplished knowing that the hard work that I had put in paid off,” he commented.
With his chapter set to compete in upcoming competitions, Reeson has already started preparations for his competition at the State Leadership Conference, which he called “the granddaddy of them all through FFA.”
“I’m studying for the Farm Agribusiness Management CDE, which we might be competing in at state,” Reeson explained.
Following his graduation this spring, Reeson plans to attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and major in nutrition and health sciences.
“(It’s from) my love of sports and seeing it firsthand through my injuries, I was intrigued and it was something I could see myself doing,” he explained.
Anticipating closing out his senior year and his time in FFA on a high note, Reeson expressed that he was grateful that he and other students in Giltner had finally been given the chance to explore different pathways in ag.
“I just appreciate the opportunity that FFA gives us and I feel like we’re very happy to have it now in Giltner,” he said, “because it just gives us a lot of opportunities that we didn’t have before and it brings a lot of attention to Giltner and a lot more kids will come together because of the FFA program they put together.”