New FFA Officers were inaugurated into their respective positions. Ruth Wise, Black River Falls FFA Chapter President, is planning on making some changes.

“I want to take and focus on communication with the parents, I realized just being talking with a parent of an FFA member in seventh grade. They don’t always know what’s going on versus what their student knows, when they come home and tell them information stuff, I want to create an atmosphere where the parents know just as much about the FFA and upcoming events and what they are as the students,” said Wise

Wise also wants to also connect with her fellow FFA members, for a variety of reasons.

“That’s something I really want to focus on this year, as well as creating that bond with the community. I mean, we do a lot of community service events already would plan to pickups, like we do a lot of stuff and stuff at the fair. But creating that bond between parents and the community, I think would be really beneficial,” said Wise.

Along with the new changes, there are new FFA Officers as well. This means new personalities, and new chances for bonding between the new leadership team.

“ I really feel that it’s going to be good for us. I mean, there is also is going to be like that drama beginning with, you know, like, Oh, I really want that position, but I didn’t get it. So the first so the person got it. So ,I mean, that’s a constant thing we deal with. But overall, I think once we go to the officer retreat and just have those two days when we’re all together, you know, pretty much all the time [during the retreat], it’s going to help us bond as an officer team and to move forward and to work more efficiently throughout the year,” said Wise.

Not only is the chapter president excited for the new year, but so is Black River Falls FFA Chapter adviser and , Mr. Markhardt.

“This upcoming year, I am very excited to work with the new FFA officer team. They really set the tone and the pace for the entire FFA chapter for the year. I’m really looking forward to working with the new team,” said Markhardt

This year is also bringing a rare occurrence in our chapter, mainly with the presidency of Ruth Wise.

“It is a very rare thing for us to have a president two years in a row. It has happened before. My first year of teaching Todd Gilbertson was the FFA Chapter president both his junior and senior year. When I look back at the history of our FFA chapter, we have a collection or we recorded who the chapter presidents have been, it’s happened a couple of times, but it is a very rare thing to have that happen.”

Every year new things happen for this chapter, and more changes will come in the future, improving the chapter more and more.

“I’m actually looking forward to a little continuity. I’m looking forward to a little of ‘we know now how we’re structured and going to organize. Now let’s just tweak that and make some improvements on it, but really take advantage of building on what we just begun this year.’”