New members to FFA attend introduction camp

A muddy cow tongue slid down a line of students’ dirty feet during the blistering summer days before school started for a new sort of bonding experience.

New Future Farmers of America members get down and dirty in the mud with their officers and other members to create a relationship over their new found club during the Green Hand Camp.

“We played pass the cow tongue, tug-o-war, musical chairs, scavenger hunt, mud fight and even a pie eating contest,” freshman Sloane Schnoebelen said. “I loved musical chairs, because when we got into it we would fall in the mud and get pushed into a tub of water.”

The camp allows the new members to get to know the veterans of the club and the officers they will look up to for the year.

“This is a tradition because it allows the new members of FFA to know everyone and not be weird when talking to the officers,” freshman Taylor McCartney said. “I enjoyed every bit of it. Everything was so much fun from playing in the mud to meeting new people.”

Throughout the year FFA members tend to spend time together at livestock shows, in class and at the ag barn. The Green Hand Camp helps to push the new members out of their comfort zone and allows them to meet the people that they will spend that time with.

“I felt closer to the other students, because fun brings people together and this makes relationships between people stronger,” freshman Cedric Gooch said. “The Green Hand Camp helps the students in FFA grow a better bond. At the end of the day I felt much closer to everyone else.”