by Scott Sacry
The Corvallis FFA program competed in the Montana FFA’s 95th Annual State Convention April 1-5 in Bozeman. To say they were successful would be an understatement.
Corvallis had three teams win their Career Development Events, two of Corvallis’s team members were elected as State FFA Officers, Corvallis’s FFA advisor Neela Hammerstein won Outstanding Early Career Teacher, and Corvallis Principal Cammie Knapp won the MAAE (Montana Associations of Agriculture Educators) Administrator of the Year.
The Corvallis FFA took home multiple awards at the Montana FFA State Convention on April 1-5 in Bozeman, including winning “three” state team events. Photo courtesy of Neela Hammerstein.
“It was such a big honor for us this year,” said Neela Hammerstein, Corvallis’s FFA Advisor for the last seven years. “We have had a great level of success at Corvallis, especially going up against some bigger schools with more resources. For example, Kalispell has six FFA teachers and we have only one in Corvallis. Overall, it was very exciting.”
The Montana FFA State Convention is a four-day event which has general sessions and workshops and hosts 23 Career Development Events or competitions. Over 2,100 members and guests attended the event. In total, there are 6,684 Montana FFA members and 109 individual state chapters.
Career Development Events
Corvallis won the team competition in three of the Career Development Events. The three events were Environmental and Natural Resources, Marketing Plan, and Agriculture Communications.
This is the most team wins of any chapter in Montana this year, which is an impressive accomplishment considering there are 109 chapters competing in Montana.
The winning Environmental and Natural Resources team consisted of Caleb Reynoso, Autumn Benson, Savanna Johnson and Hasalyn Schairer.
The winning Marketing Plan team included Jackson Pliley, Beauden Therrien and Morgan Bisel.
The winning Agriculture Communications team included Kaia Benson, Sage Eubanks, Emma Cooper and Samantha Royce.
The team of Kaia Benson, Sage Eubanks, Emma Cooper and Samantha Royce won the Agriculture Communications Event at the FFA State Convention. Photo courtesy of Neela Hammerstein.
To get a sense of what is involved in the Career Development Events, the following is what students did in the Agricultural Communications event.
The Agricultural Communication event was a no prep event, so participants go in not knowing what they will be asked to do and without preparation. First, each member of the team took an ACT level 50-multiple-choice-question test. Then, the group watched a 20 minute press conference, similar to a farm bureau news conference explaining an issue, and were then asked to prepare materials based on what they learned from the press conference.
To start with, Kaia Benson wrote a 300-500 word newspaper style article about the press conference. Then, Emma Cooper did a special magazine style layout embedding Benson’s article. Next, Sage Eubanks created a series of social media posts disseminating the info. Finally, Samantha Royce created a video montage of all the information. At the end, the group had to turn in a communication plan to the judges highlighting what they did. They had to finish all of this in an hour and a half.
“As you can imagine, this was a very high pressure process,” said Hammerstein. “The team was stressed out, and at one point I saw one of them pulling at their hair. But they did it, and they won the event. This is such a great lesson for life.”
Hammerstein continued, “Afterwards we got to go on the set of Montana PBS and I could see Kaia have an ‘aha’ moment that this might be something she wanted to do in life. That was a great moment for me as an educator to see a student start finding a potential path forward for themselves.”
State FFA Officers
Two members of the Corvallis team were elected as State FFA Officers. Autumn Benson was elected as Reporter, and Morgan Bisel was elected as Secretary.
Corvallis FFA members Morgan Bisel and Autumn Benson were elected as 2025 State FFA Officers. Photo courtesy of Neela Hammerstein.
The FFA Officers are the best of the best. Out of the 6,684 Montana FFA members, the officers are the top eight kids. This cream of the crop group was whittled down to 33 kids before state, then 17 were invited to state to interview.
The kids who went to state had to complete an extensive interview process before a nine-person panel and they had multiple team interviews, private interviews, and individual round robin interviews with all the judges asking rapid fire questions.
“This will be the hardest interview process any of these kids will have to endure their whole life,” said Hammerstein.
Montana Association of Agricultural Educators Awards
As with any student competitions, the leaders, coaches and advisors make a seismic impact on how well the kids do. This is certainly the case in Corvallis as two of the teacher leaders for Corvallis FFA won Montana Association of Agriculture Educators (MAAE) awards. Neela Hammerstein, Corvallis’s FFA advisor, won the Outstanding Early Career Teacher award. Cammie Knapp, the Corvallis high school principal, won the Administrator of the Year award.
“All the FFA leaders are so hard working and dedicated,” said Hammerstein, “so it meant a lot to me to be honored with this award by my peers.”
The Corvallis FFA teams qualified to compete in the 98th National FFA Convention and Expo, which will be held in Indianapolis, Indiana October 29-November 1.