California FFA News Fall 2014 | Page 4

Outstanding Chapter Las Plumas The Las Plumas FFA Chapter from Oroville, California is home to 392 FFA members and four ag teachers. The program offers courses in Ag Physical Science, Ag Biology, Horticulture, Forestry & Natural Resources, Floriculture, Animal Science, ROP Veterinary Skills, Ag Leadership, Intro & Advanced Ag Mechanics, and ROP Ag Heavy Equipment & Construction. All four agriculture teachers share a passion for their students and their success. The team of Agriculture Teachers include Mr. Knapp, Mrs. Earley, Ms. Aldridge, and Mr. Darrach. The department shares a common theme that it takes hard work, dedication, and passion to become successful at anything, including having an outstanding agriculture program. This hard work, dedication and passion has been the driving force in the program flourishing. Las Plumas students made some improvements to their school farm this past year in their plant sale region and their new livestock barn. Just outside the two greenhouses at the school farm, students cleared the old retaining wall, poured new concrete, built two pergolas, and did some brick laying between the new and old concrete to give the plant sale area a fresh, new look and improve its functionality for upcoming plant sales. Plant sales at the local farmer’s market have also become a major project classes who graded the area, installed water lines for troughs, poured concrete, and welded all the pipe to make the pens. Working with the Animal Science students, they also installed rubber stall mats throughout the entire barn, in the pens, and in the hog and sheep/ goat facility. The Veterinary Skills students started a monthly dog bath fundraiser where students secured subscriptions from staff members to have their dogs washed every month in the new dog washing area installed this year, adding to experiences students may encounter in the veterinary field. The Las Plumas CDE teams competed at the 2014 State Finals competition and brought home ribbons in Horticulture (4th place), Forestry (4th place), and Livestock (5th place and Annie Belden “The department shares a common theme that it takes hard work, dedication, and passion to become successful at anything, including having an outstanding agriculture program.” 4 California FFANEWS • Fall 2014 for several students in the Horticulture classes. The Ag Mechanics classes and Animal and Veterinary Science classes worked collectively this year to finish up their new steer pens and show/ demo facility. The pens were built by the Ag Mechanics and Heavy Equipment and Construction