New Hampton lands another FFA officer

Go back in time three years ago to St. Joseph Community School, where Alison McDonald was an eighth-grader.
Find her and tell her, “Oh, by the way, in three years, you’ll be an FFA district officer.”
“That girl would have probably thought you were a little crazy,” said the now New Hampton High School junior. “Well, honestly, she would have thought your were a lot crazy.”
Yet, here McDonald is, the new secretary of the FFA Northeast Iowa district, and in so many ways, that’s a testament to the organization in general and the New Hampton chapter in particular.
Years ago, FFA stood for Future Farmers of America; today, it’s just FFA.
Yes, the membership includes future farmers, but it also includes young people who want to work in the agriculture economy and have no plans — zilch, nada — of ever living on a farm. And FFA, especially in New Hampton, is also home to kids like McDonald, who didn’t grow up on a farm and may not even pursue a career in the ag industry.
“For me, I took an ag class just to see what it’s all about,” McDonald said, “and I found out I loved the classes, I loved the growth I saw in people who were in FFA. I found my niche in FFA.”
She laughed when asked about her favorite ag classes.
“Definitely, I’m more of a horticulture girl,” she said. “The animal science ones? Not so much. Let’s just say, I can get a little squeamish.”
Still, becoming an officer?
Oh, she thought about it as a freshman when New Hampton agriculture teacher Jim Russ showed his students an old state officer’s coat.
“He told us that ‘[Michael] Tupper saw it and said that’s going to be me one day,’” McDonald said of the New Hampton High School graduate who would become Iowa’s FFA president, “and I thought, ‘Hey, I want to do that.’”
 
For more of this article, see Friday's Tribune.

*/