NEWLY ESTABLISHED KODIAK FFA CHAPTER

The Kodiak Soil & Water Conservation District is proud to have partnered with teacher Jane Eisemann of the Kodiak High School to establish the first FFA Chapter in Kodiak. Thank you, Jane!!! The FFA organization is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn about our Natural Resources and Environment while developing their personal leadership skills. Our local Chapter plans to focus on developing our youth's skills by offering leadership opportunities to assist with local community needs. FFA also offers a wide variety of awards and scholarships to its members.

We have been very fortunate to have had Hannah Harris, State FFA Advisor come to recruit for our local Chapter. As a direct result we had 14 students attend the first meeting with another 10 that could not make it due to after school activities. Hannah also recruited our first FFA Advisor Tom Anthony. Tom works for the Alaska State Troopers Wildlife Enforcement Division as a Public Safety Technician. Tom is an Alumni of FFA and has eagerly accepted full responsibility to assist our Chapter. We have also been fortunate to have Matt Wilson, General Manager of KVOK-FM Radio Station as our new Assistant Advisor. Matt is also an Alumni of FFA. We could not have done this without the exceptional work of these community leaders-Thank you!!!!

Our Kodiak FFA Chapter has accepted their first community project. Our local Whale Fest Kodiak has obtained a grant to bus 3rd through 6th grade students out to Narrow Cape to celebrate the migration of the gray whales past Kodiak. The students will observe gray whales playing on the surf, migrating near shore while learning about the various aspects of the whales. Many of these children have not had the opportunity to travel outside of our Kodiak City limits, let alone to view whale pods in their natural habitat. Melissa Watson a local teacher came to offer our students several diverse opportunities to assist with the project. Some of the areas the FFA Chapter youth will assist in include chaperoning the younger students and leading them through different activities on the beach, taking photographs, videos and writing articles for newspapers, newsletters and other publications, assisting with the Whale Fest Website among other areas of assistance. Our FFA Chapter Students are excited at the leadership opportunities this project has to offer along with the opportunity to participate in an event that is of significant benefit to our community and local youth.

It should be noted that many of the participants of our FFA Chapter also are involved in our Envirothon.

Our Group Photo	It's official, we're a Chapter March 7, 2007