In the Classroom Local FFA chapters
LIFE lessons
Madison Consolidated High School FFA students stay community-focused By Catherine Whittier Photography by Josh Marshall
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FARM INDIANA // MARCH 2016
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Every year in January, the FFA officers team at Madison Consolidated High School (MCHS) packs up to take a trip to the FFA Leadership Center in Trafalgar. As the officers settle in and kick off their shoes, the log cabin-style lodge becomes chapter headquarters, as well as a training center for new officers, and students begin to brainstorm and plan the activities for the months ahead. Approximately 100 of the 1,000 or so students who attend MCHS are FFA
members, which makes it one of the largest extracurricular groups in the school, explains Amanda Briggs, agriculture teacher and FFA adviser. “We’re not a very rural school, so we have a lot of kids who are city kids,” she adds. The Madison chapter focuses on community service, communication and team building. “We are not big into production agriculture; we don’t do a lot of livestock judging, and we don’t have a lot of the proficiencies and things that some of the