feb/march newsletter

Inside this issue:

Holiday Social 2

Ice Skating 3

Officer Message 3

FFA Week 4

Wildlife CDE 5

Remind 101 5

Stuff the Bus 6

February/March 2016 Volume 4, Issue 7

The Georgia Junior National Livestock Shows were held on February 17th-20th at the Georgia National Fair-grounds in Perry, Georgia. During this annual event, Jackson County 4-H and FFA members exhibited livestock pro-jects and earned many accomplish-ments. Successes in the show ring started with showmanship on Thurs-day. Jackson County 4H members Keely Shultz and Morgan McDaniel and East Jackson Middle FFA member Bella Chandler all placed first and re-ceived belt buckles in Fourth Grade, Fifth Grade, and Sixth Grade Show-manship, respectively. Gum Springs Fifth Grader, Jesse Cronic, placed 6th in his class of showmanship while West Jackson Middle FFA members Savan-nah Page, Madyson McDaniel, and Abi-gail Allen all finished within the top 5 of sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, respectively. East Jackson Middle FFA member Wyatt Chandler placed first in 9th grade showmanship and took home a belt buckle while Kayley Ed-wards of Jackson County 4H placed 10th. In Senior Showmanship, Jackson Schieszer of East Jackson placed 10th, and Cindy Cooper of Jackson County FFA placed 5th.

The Heifer Show took place on Friday and started with Cindy Cooper and Madyson McDaniel placing 1st and 2nd in their Simmental classes. They both went on to be named Grand and Re-

Jackson County Livestock Show Team Earns Many Awards at the

Georgia Junior National Livestock Show

serve Champion of the Simmental breed. Jackson County had six heifers showing in the Angus breed and all six came out of the ring with a top three finish as well as Grand and Reserve Champions! West Jackson Middle FFA’s Savannah Page took home a first place and two 2nd places, Abigail Allen and Cindy Cooper both took home first place finishes, and Peyton Puckett of Jackson County FFA placed third. Abigail Allen’s heifer went on to be chosen as Grand Champion Angus followed by Cindy Cooper’s heifer for Re-serve Champion.

In the Chi-Influenced heifer di-vision, Carlie Howington of East Jackson FFA placed first in her class. Charlie Brooksher of West Jackson Middle FFA placed 6th with his Low Per-centage Simmental. Austin Hill

Newsletter West Jackson Middle FFA

West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter

State Show Continued

of East Jackson FFA placed second in his All Oth-er Breeds class with his Beefmaster.

In the High Percentage Simmental division, Drew Brooksher of Jackson County FFA placed 10th and Cindy Cooper placed second while Mor-gan McDaniel and Bella Chandler both won their classes. Morgan McDaniel’s heifer, Ditto, went on to be chosen as Grand Champion High Per-centage Simmen-tal, and Bella Chandler’s heifer was chosen as Reserve Champi-on.

In the Shorthorn division, East Jackson FFA Sen-ior, Jackson Schieszer, placed 1st in class and went on to be chosen as Grand Champion Short-horn heifer. In the Maine heifer classes, Landis Seagraves of Jackson 4H placed third, and Justin Morgan of Commerce FFA placed first. Justin’s heifer also went on to receive Grand Champion Maine Heif-er. Keely Shultz placed first in class with her Li-mousin heifer, and she went on to receive Grand Champion Limousin heifer.

In the Commercial heifer division, Hunter Spear of Commerce FFA placed fourth and Heidi Seagraves of Jackson 4H placed third while Jesse Cronic and Wyatt Chandler both placed second in their classes. Cameron Watts of Commerce FFA placed first in his class and went on to be chosen as Reserve Champion in his weight divi-sion.

When it was time for the Overall Champion Heifer Drive, Jackson County was proud to have six Grand Champions and three Reserve Cham-pions in the ring to vie for the Top 5 Overall

Heifers. This is an amazing feat since there were 14 different breeds represented – nearly half of the champions were shown by Jackson County students! Another exciting part of the day was that we had Jackson County School System Su-perintendent, Dr. April Howard, and Jackson County School System Assistant Superintendent, Jamie Hitzges, on site to celebrate in these won-

derful accomplishments! All of the Jackson County Show Team members would like to thank them for their attend-ance and their continued support of the agricul-tural programs. In the end, Jackson County had quite an amazing accom-plishment…four of the Top 5 Overall Champion Heifers were from Jack-son County exhibitors, and three of those four were raised right here in Jackson County!

Morgan McDaniel’s Grand Champion High

Percentage Heifer was chosen as Overall Grand Champion Heifer, Bella Chandler’s Reserve Champion High Percentage Heifer was chosen as Reserve Overall Grand Champion Heifer, Third Overall Champion went to Cindy Cooper with her Grand Champion Simmental, and Fourth Overall Champion went to Keely Shultz with her Limousin Heifer.

The Steer show took place on Sunday, and Cindy Cooper placed second with her Crossbred Steer, first with her Simmental Steer, and went on to win Grand Champion of the breed.

While at the Georgia Junior National Show, the Jackson County Beef Show Team also participat-ed in the County Group of Five and Breeder’s Group competitions. The County Group of Five competition is simply a group of the best five heifers or steers your county has to offer. Jack-

Volume 4, Issue 7

State Show Continued


son County had a group of heifers in this com-petition, and they placed first overall. A group of three heifers bred by C & C Farms took home first place honors in the Breeder’s Group con-test.

Jackson County had an unbelievable weekend

of student successes and memories made, and

the exhibitors are all looking forward to pre-

paring for the next show season!

During the Market Swine Shows at the Georgia

Junior Livestock Shows, WJMS FFA mem-

bers Savannah Page, Madyson McDaniel,

and Colton Boone all placed in their

showmanship classes. Savannah placed

third in sixth grade showmanship while

Madyson McDaniel placed tenth and Col-

ton Boone placed eleventh in seventh

grade showmanship. In the barrow

show on Friday, Savannah Page placed

first in class, went on to receive Reserve

Grand Champion Barrow in division five,

and then was chosen as Reserve Champi-

on Market Barrow.


West Jackson Middle FFA members visit the Gold Dome for FFA Day at the Capitol

ATLANTA – Members of the West Jackson Middle FFA chapter were among members from twenty-four FFA chapters from across the state who attended the 30th annual FFA Day at the Capitol on February 23, 2016. Madyson McDaniel and Hannah White, and their ad-visor April Davis represented the West Jackson Mid-dle FFA chapter by attending the FFA Day legislative breakfast and group photo with Governor Nathan Deal. Following breakfast students witnessed the reading of a resolution recognizing the FFA in the chambers of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and had the opportunity to visit their lo-cal Representative and Senator, as well as visit the Georgia Department of Education and the Georgia Department of Agriculture. The FFA Day legislative breakfast was highlighted by speakers including Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle, State School Superintendent Richard Woods, Agricul-ture Commissioner Gary Black, as well as House Agri-culture Committee Chair, Representative Tom McCall, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair, Senator John Wilkinson, and House Appropriations Chair, Repre-sentative Terry England. Nearly two hundred FFA mem-bers, advisors, Alumni and staff attended the FFA Day at the Capi-tol. The Georgia FFA is the third larg-est FFA Association in the nation, with over 39,000 members in 310 chapters. The mission of the FFA is to make a positive difference in the lives of students by develop-ing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultur-al education.

Volume 4, Issue 7

The Sub-Area II Creed Speaking Career De-velopment Event was held at Madison County High School in Danielsville, GA on February 25th.

FFA members competing in the Creed Speaking CDE learning the five paragraphs of the FFA Creed, recite the Creed to a panel of judges, and then answer a series of ques-tions about it.

Eighth Grader Tyler Payne represented West Jackson Middle FFA in the Creed Speaking CDE and competed against more than 50 other middle school and freshman members. In the end, Tyler scored high enough to be one of ten finalists chosen to move on to the Area II CDE on March 16th.


West Jackson Middle FFA Member Advances

in Creed Speaking


West Jackson Middle School Celebrates National FFA Week

Students, teachers, and staff at West Jackson Middle School celebrated National FFA Week from Monday, February 29th – Friday, March 4th. During this week long festivity, FFA members and supporters cel-ebrated with fun activities, FFA Awareness events, and community service projects. WJMS FFA also offered the FFA Week Homeroom Chal-lenge where homeroom clas-ses could compete for points each day by answering FFA trivia, participating in the dif-ferent dress up days, and do-nating cans of food for our can food drive.

Before National FFA Week, West Jackson Middle FFA Week Committee made plans to have a “Stuff the Bus” can food drive where the plan was to stuff a school bus with as many can food goods as possible. The plan was to collect can food items throughout FFA Week and donate all items to iServe Minis-tries at the end of the week. In order to get more involved in the community and neighbor-ing elementary schools, WJMS FFA challenged Gum Springs Elementary School, West Jackson Elementary, and North Jackson Elementary School to all donate to our cause. Each elemen-tary school was asked to take part in this en-

deavor, and, in turn, the school with the highest percentage raised will receive $500 to go to-

wards an agricultural edu-cation project at their school.

The FFA Week activities started on Monday with Super Hero Day! Students and staff were asked to dress as their favorite su-per hero! This was also the beginning of the FFA Week Homeroom Chal-lenge! FFA related trivia questions were given dur-ing the announcements and the homeroom that returned the correct an-swer the quickest was giv-

en 5 points! After school, members of the FFA Week Committee visited the after school pro-gram at West Jackson Elementary to talk with students about agricultural education and FFA at WJMS and complete a fun activity with them.

Staff and FFA Member Appreciation Day was on Tuesday, and FFA Officers prepared a pancake breakfast and served it to faculty and staff at WJMS. Also, FFA members were treated to breakfast in the Ag room. This was a small way to thank the staff members and FFA members for their support and participation throughout

the year. After school, FFA members enjoyed a Soup-er Community Service FFA meet-ing where they enjoyed differ-ent kinds of soup, had a lesson from WJMS FFA President Sa-vannah Van Buren about how to properly write a thank you note, wrote thank you notes to mem-bers of the community, and then worked to stuff the bus with the food items donated.

Wednesday was Blue and Gold

Volume 4, Issue 7 West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter

FFA Week Continued

Day, and all faculty, staff, and students were encouraged to dress in as much blue and gold as possible. After school, members of the FFA Week Committee visited the after school program at North Jackson Ele-mentary to talk with students about agricul-tural education and FFA at WJMS and complete a fun activity with them. Thursday was Squad Day, and participants found a group (or their squad) to dress alike for the day. Some homerooms really took the squad idea to heart by creating their own tshirts or even planning to all dress alike.

Friday was the final day of FFA Week, and WJMS FFA started the day by bringing breakfast to the staff and drivers at the Jackson County Transportation Depart-ment. We wanted to thank them for always supporting us with our many trips and events throughout the year, and we specifically want-ed to thank them for letting us use a bus for such a long time during the stuff the bus can food drive. The FFA Week Committee mem-bers got together to present a check to Gum Springs Elementary School for winning the Stuff the Bus challenge! GSES collected over 2,800 food items, and be-tween Gum Springs Elementary, West Jackson Elementary and the homerooms at West Jackson Mid-dle, we collected over 5,400 food items! After school on Friday, WJMS FFA Advisor, April Davis, took the school bus from the Stuff the Bus can food drive and several

FFA members to deliver the can food items to iServe Ministries.

The 2016 FFA Week Celebration was jam packed with all kinds of events to get stu-dents, teachers, and the community in-volved in FFA activi-ties. The West Jackson Middle FFA Week Committee would like to thank everyone for participating in the

FFA Week festivities and donating to the com-munity service project!


Scenes from FFA Week!

Volume 4, Issue 7 West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter

Volume 4, Issue 7

Would you like to be an FFA Officer next year?

See Mrs. Davis for an application!

West Jackson Middle FFA Newsletter West Jackson Middle FFA

West JacksonMiddle School

400 Gum Springs Church Rd

Jefferson, GA 30549

Phone: 706-654-2775

Extension: 503

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: wjmsffa.wix.com/wjmsffa

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Mark your calendars!

West Jackson Middle FFA Banquet

Tuesday, April 26th

6:00PM

Jackson EMC Building in Jefferson

Formal Invitation to come soon!

feb/march newsletter

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