The Tyrone Area FFA went to the 101st Pennsylvania Farm Show to encourage their fellow chapter members who received awards and showed livestock.

The biggest honor received by Tyrone was Madalynn Veit being recognized as the South Central PA FFA Star Farmer. She competed against three other regional winners for the Pennsylvania State title.

Veit was one of the 357 Keystone Degree recipients. Veit was also the only Tyrone Area FFA member to receive her Keystone (State) FFA Degree this year.

“Madalynn represented herself, family, and our agricultural program well and I could not be more proud of her at this moment.  She has a young flock and just in recent months has truly began a strong breeding program – this all takes time and being that she started her SAE from the ground up and has put a lot of hard work in to program – she is a winner in my eyes,” said Tiffany Hoy, FFA adviser.

Early that day Veit faced a panel of judges who asked questions about her Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) program. This focused on raising Border Leicester sheep for fiber production and breeding/showing programs.

“Though she did not receive the overall Star State Farmer, she can be proud of being the regional Star Farmer and for receiving her Keystone FFA Degree,” added Hoy.

The National FFA Organization also presented 467 first year members with their Blue and Gold corduroy FFA Jackets.

More than 800 applications were submitted to the National FFA Organization for members who were unable to purchase their personal jackets. Tyrone students Haley Miller and Brandon Ixtepan-Ramirez were among the 467 members selected to receive complementary jackets.

“The experience was amazing. Watching the sea of white dress shirts turn into a sea of blue was something truly amazing. I will never forget this moment of when I put on my very own FFA Jacket,” said Miller.

“I was unable to attend because of a sporting event and I’m truly sad to have missed it, but I’m very proud to have an FFA Jacket with my name on it,” added Ramirez.

David Conrad stood in for Brandon and experienced that moment of standing in front of 5,000 plus people in a simple white dress shirt and black pants and then putting on the jacket. Conrad was to receive his FFA Jacket at the Mid-Winter convention two years ago, but because of the weather he was unable to attend. Conrad felt that he was truly becoming a member of the Agricultural Education Family with the iconic and highly recognizable corduroy jacket.