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CHS senior Joana Romero Manriquez is a rising star in FFA, having won first place in Public Speaking for two consecutive years.
Mariana Esquivel Reyes, a freshman at CHS, took home first place in the Best Informed Greenhand competition.
Warriors FFA program churns out winners BY DEBRA HERRICK
Carpinteria High School’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) program continues to stand out as a leader in agricultural education. This month, two students took home first place awards in FFA district conferences, held virtually. Freshman Mariana Esquivel Reyes placed first for Best Informed Greenhand on Nov. 18, and senior Joana Romero Manriquez placed first in Public Speaking on Nov. 4. Both students competed against students from five schools in the Ventura Section: Santa Paula, Adolfo Camarillo, Fillmore and Ventura high schools. Carpinteria High School’s team placed second in the overall competition for Best Informed Greenhand and third overall in the Public Speaking competition. Esquivel’s top honors were earned in a quiz bowl style aptitude test on FFA leadership skills, including topics such as political decorum and organizational/constitutional structure, educational policy and major agricultural developments. “It feels good to win, I didn’t think I was going to, but I was ready for the questions,” Esquivel said, noting that she had been coached by her FFA teachers Sal Lopez and Noe Gomez. “I couldn’t have done it without them. They are really good teachers.” Esquivel also received guidance from her Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) teacher Ramsey Smith who encouraged her to join FFA. The AVID program facilitates students in doing well in school academics and extracurricular programs with the goal of applying to a four-year university. Students are assigned to cohorts for AVID and remain with the same classmates and teacher for all four years of high school. “If it wasn’t for her AVID teacher pushing her to get to know her teachers, we would never have met Mariana,” said Lopez. “She came over to one of our Zoom sessions and introduced herself and from that moment, we knew, we were so impressed we wanted her on our team. . . Mariana has natural leadership abilities. She has her camera on, she has great speaking abilities, and she is a natural butt-kicker.” This is the second year in a row that Romero has taken home first place in the Public Speaking competition. “Joana has been a great public speaker; she’s a natural,” said Lopez. “She’s a high prospect for a student with great leadership skills. She’s a great student; she excels in all her classes and she is still going strong even though classes are now online.” The FFA Public Speaking competition tests students on proper ways of opening and closing a procedure based on standard parliamentary procedures. FFA is not only about animals, said Lopez, “it’s a youth leadership organization.” Right now, Lopez noted that teachers are seeing a lot of students
experiencing apathy in school, but some students, like Esquivel and Romero, “are not allowing that this change bring them down.” They both studied and practiced. “We’d like to see more students adopt that attitude,” Lopez said. With their first-place wins, Esquivel and Romero now qualify for the FFA State Competition in their categories. The State Competition will be held in April 2021.
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