ABOVE: Members of Martin County West’s Farm and Agribusiness Management team at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis. From left: Jacob Fiala, Brock Lange, Raef Omvig, and Kari Matejka.

SHERBURN- Last week was the 95th Annual FFA Convention in Indianapolis. It served as a major event for five students from the Martin County West (MCW) FFA chapter. A team of four students placed within the top fifth for their event and an MCW graduate received her American FFA Degree.

Four students from MCW’s Farm and Agribusiness management team placed 8th at nationals after winning at state earlier this year

“It’s a fairly rare thing for chapters to have a team go to nationals so it’s a pretty exciting thing when that happens,” said Stephanie Wohlhuter, an agriculture teacher at MCW and the primary advisor for the school’s FFA chapter.

In the agribusiness contest students must answer a series of questions about business and marketing and then are presented with the financial information for a simulated agriculture operation. Then they must analyze its business and find ways to improve profitability. In order to compete at the national convention the MCW team first needed to win in its regional and statewide competitions which they did during the previous school year.

“The kids were great. They were super willing to work hard and they worked very hard to get to that position,” said Jonah Mayo, another advisor to the FFA chapter at MCW and one of the coaches for the agribusiness team.

Although winning their state convention was a very difficult task it didn’t come as much of a surprise to Mayo.

“It was three seniors and a junior last spring when they won state, and all of those guys had been in farm management for three, four, years and they had placed in the top five the two years prior to winning,” said Mayo.

Since winning the state championship two members of MCW’s agribusiness team graduated and needed to be replaced by two new students who had previously never competed with the activity.

“When you have seniors that go off to college sometimes they opt not to go to the national competition because of their college schedules,” said Wolhuter.

This year’s returners were Raef Omvig, a senior at MCW and the chapter’s treasurer, and Jacob Fiala, a freshman at St. Mary’s University who served as chapter president during his senior year at MCW. The team’s two newcomers where chapter president Brock Lange, a junior at MCW, and chapter secretary Kari Matejka, a senior at MCW and the younger sister of Emily Matejka.

The two newcomers practiced for two hours everyday for two weeks in order to catch up to the returners.

“(The newcomers) did great, I bet you they, in (a) two week time period, spent about two hours a day just about everyday getting caught up,” said Mayo.

At last week’s convention MCW graduate Emily Matejka also received her FFA American Degree, the highest degree achievable for FFA participants. In order to receive an American Degree, FFA members must have earned and productively invested $10,000 through a supervised agricultural experience, complete at least 50 hours of community service and receive a State FFA Degree.

Matejka said hearing about the experiences of older FFA participants was a major factor which drove her to receive her degree.

“I thought it was super cool as a young kid listening, to see how the older FFA members could achieve this top honor in FFA. … I knew that was something I wanted to be a part of eventually,” said Matejka.

After joining FFA in the 7th grade Matejka was elected as a junior high chapter officer. In the 8th grade she joined the small animals career development team and she continued participating in this activity into her freshman year of high school. During her sophomore year she was chapter historian and switched to the crops career development team and continued working with that team for the rest of her time in high school. During her sophomore and junior year she was the chapter’s secretary and by senior year she was the chapter’s president.

After graduating from MCW, Matejka took a break from FFA during most of her first year of college but ran for and was elected as the Minnesota FFA state president in the spring and held the office during her sophomore year of college.

Matejka is currently a junior at South Dakota State University (SDSU) majoring in Agricultural Communications with minors in Agronomy and Agriculture Business. She’s tentatively planning to graduate in the spring of 2024. She hasn’t made a final decision yet regarding what she’ll do after graduating but is considering a career in commercial sales.