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For the first time in the history of the Ellsworth Junior-Senior High School FFA Chapter, Ellsworth has been named the number one FFA Chapter in Kansas.

The award — and possession of the prestigious Bob Garlow Memorial Triple Crown Trophy — came during the recent Kansas FFA State Convention in Manhattan.

“I’m really excited about this opportunity and am extremely proud of my students and my FFA members for working this hard,” said Ellsworth FFA advisor Karl Dawn Stover.“Last year, we are actually state runner-up, and the year before we were right at 10th. So every year the kids have improved.”

During the Triple Crown Presentation, Stover said her members were excited because they knew, as a Gold Chapter, the Ellsworth FFA was at least in the top 10 chapters in Kansas.

“We were excited about that because that’s always a place my kids like to be,” she said.

Then it was announced the Ellsworth FFA had made the top five, then the top three.

“When they announced the second place team, all of us were cheering, and were so excited,” Stover said. “It’s a jaw-dropping experience, because we like to put our best foot forward — but to be named the number one chapter in the state is pretty cool.”

Cassidy Kroboth, 2018-19 Ellsworth FFA Chapter President and Kara Hays, 2018-19 Ellsworth FFA Chapter Vice President, accepted the Garlow Memorial Trophy on stage.

“It was great news,” Kroboth said.

“When we heard second being called and it wasn’t our name, and knowing that we were first in that moment was pretty awesome,” added Hays. “You just knew our four years, and even five or six for junior high, really paid off in the end.”

Looking to Repeat

Kroboth said the goal of next year’s Ellsworth FFA officer team, as expressed by Zoe Barta, the 2019-20 Ellsworth FFA President, is to do more activities in order to earn the Bob Garlow Memorial Triple Crown Trophy again next year.

Stover, who has been the Ellsworth FFA advisor for seven years, said the Ellsworth FFA, which had 55 members this year, applied to be considered for the award.

“It is a very long process,” she said.“The kids actually had to host a variety of all different types and kinds of events throughout the whole school year to really show diversity and inclusion in our FFA Chapter, the school and also the community.”

Stover said the biggest challenge was actually planning, hosting and funding all of the activities.

“One of my favorite ones we do is our Tough Enough to Wear Pink Week,” she said. “Which is our Cancer Awareness Week.”

Stover said the Ellsworth FFA has hosted a Cancer Awareness Week event the past six years.

“During the last three years, we’ve given a $1,000 donation to the Cancer fund,” she said. “That’s a huge activity. We have a lot of buy-in from the kids and also the community.”

The Ellsworth FFA also hosted a Character Building Day with the school’s student council.

“The student leaders in FFA and STUCCO created their own lesson plans and taught all the students at EJSHS about different character traits such as honesty, teamwork and leadership,” Stover said.“It was completely student driven so it was a fun thing to see. It was really well received by the school.”

Kroboth and Hays said this activity was their favorite of the school year.

“It was really fun to see all those high school students and younger kids really get involved in the activities we did,” Kroboth said.

“It wasn’t like the high school doing their own thing and the middle school doing their own thing,” Hays said. “We combined them and they worked together to complete the different activities we came up with.”

Giving Credit

Both Kroboth and Hays gave all the credit for the Ellsworth FFA winning the top Chapter in Kansas award to Stover and the countless hours she puts in.

“She is in there after school working with us,” Kroboth said. “I don’t know how she goes home and farms and does all of her stuff. She’s never at home — she’s always with us. She comes in early in the morning — she is always basing her life off of her students and trying to help us succeed.”

Hard Work is Everything

Asked what she has learned from being named the top FFA Chapter in Kansas, Hays said simply “hard work is everything.”

“You’re not going to get it if you just show up and you don’t do it,” Hays said. “You have to work for it. You have to keep putting in the time, even when you feel like you can’t and you don’t want to, and you feel like it’s not going to do anything, because it does.”

Kroboth said she learned that stress is her best friend.

“I got so stressed,” she said. “But even though I had stress, I think it pushed me harder and I persevered through it all.”

Trophy on Display

Stover said she plans to display the Bob Garlow Memorial Triple Crown Trophy at several businesses in Ellsworth.

The businesses will partner with the Ellsworth FFA to not only highlight the trophy, but to highlight all of the good things the community does for the FFA.

“They keep us up and keep us going so we want to showcase all they do for us as well,” Stover added.

Other State Awards Won

The Ellsworth FFA Chapter also won the following awards at the State Convention:

• Growing Leaders National Chapter Award, state champions.

• State Building Communities National Chapter Award, fifth place.

• State Strengthening Agriculture National Chapter Award, gold.

• State FFA Quiz Bowl, fifth place.

• Lukas Sebesta was named State FFA Treasurer. The last state officer from the Ellsworth FFA was in 1968.

• Lukas Sebesta won a National Scholarship.

• Kara Hays placed third in the State KAAE Essay Contest.

• Sara Klein was named to the State FFA Band.

• Zoe Barta was awarded the State FFA Degree.

• For the Agri-Science Fair, Kara Hays was state animal science champion and runner-up in the state social science division along with Rachel Sebesta. Macey Homeier was the state national resource champion.

On to the National Level

Stover said the next step for the Ellsworth FFA is to send an application to the national level. She said the top 10 chapters from each state will also send an application to nationals.

“Nationals takes quite a while to go through all of those,” Stover said. “We got to send our application in last year and we were declared a Three Star Chapter.”

That put the Ellsworth FFA in the top one percent of FFA Chapters in the United States.

“We’re excited to see it go to nationals,” Stover said. “It would be an honor if one of our activities could break in the top 10 in nationals. Then we would actually send students there to do the interview process.”

Stover said if that happened, the Ellsworth FFA would know how they placed this fall during the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind.