FFA Creed Contest held over Zoom

New Mexico FFA District IV's annual Creed Contest took place over Zoom last Wednesday. Usually held at a local high school or university, this year things were moved online so that young FFA members would not miss out on the opportunity only available to middle schoolers and freshman.

Jerry Faver, Portales High School’s agriculture teacher, was the official host of the event and helped transition the contest onto the virtual format.

“That was pretty stressful for an old ag teacher; it seems like the newer generation gets along just a little bit better on computers and all. But we got it pulled off and it was a success. I just sure hope we don't have to do many more of these online,” Faver said.

He credited much of the contest's success to Rachelle Harris, his former student teacher and now science teacher at Portales Junior High. Faver said that Harris ran the computer portion and different online rooms while he worked with the scheduling and various communication issues.

They had nine judges, three online competition rooms, and five district and state FFA officers who helped in the virtual holding rooms before competitors performed.

The Creed Contest, or more formally the Creed Speaking Leadership Development Event, is where FFA members from seventh through ninth grades recite the National FFA Creed from memory in front of a panel of judges and then answer questions about it.

Some key factors of this contest that were impacted by its transition online were the body language skills and other visual presentation skills that students often coordinate to accompany their spoken parts.

“Whenever I visit with the judges… I told them probably to not be quite as critical in that area of it. I told them if you were needing to put more emphasis in other areas, say for instance answering the questions,” Faver said. “Them basically having to stand in one area and do it; it was a challenge for us old guys telling our kids what they could and couldn't do this time.”

Though the setting changed, turnout for the contest was up to par with previous years. A total of eight area FFA chapters were represented with over 35 student participants.

“It's nice to know that even though kids are having to do their school and extracurriculars online there were a lot of them that were dedicated and had a lot of self motivation to do this above and beyond what they're also doing with their online school,” Faver said, adding that he's “pretty partial” to the FFA kids who have risen to the challenges of this year.

Mike Daugherty, ag teacher for Dora schools, had five students in the junior high creed contest and four in the greenhand (ninth grade) division. He said that having the contest online was tough not only due to technical aspects, but also because of the practices leading up to it.

“It's a lot harder than doing it in person. A lot of obstacles you gotta get over. Just the fact that you're not with the kids everyday face-to-face and working on something; instantly getting to fix it,” he said. “They can still learn the creed, that part's easy, but.. the gestures, the mannerism, how you answer the questions, that's how you're going to win. Lots of kids are going to know the creed word for word, but its the rest of it that goes with it that's the deciding factor on winning,”

Junior high students who qualified at this contest will go on to participate at the New Mexico Leadership Conference, which is usually in Albuquerque but will also be held virtually.

“Everybody gets their official dress on and they're doing it at their home,” Faver said.

Daugherty also serves on the New Mexico FFA Board of Trustees, who met Thursday night and made the decision to hold judging contests virtually for the upcoming season.

“We got cheated out of it last year with COVID happening and everything else, we didn't get to judge- I think we went to two invitationals last year,” Daugherty said. “I think we have a pretty good shot at having a decent judging season, depending on what the governor does.”

He emphasized that online judging contests would not be the same as normal ones from past years, but that being able to do something for FFA students was better than nothing.