Small School, Big FFA Success
When San Simon FFA advisor Mike Zamudio welcomed his students on the first week of school, he issued a challenge: He wanted the entire senior class at the Arizona high school to earn their Arizona State FFA Degrees before graduation.
“They all set their goals and made sure they joined teams and got enough community service hours and activities to earn their state degrees,” he recalls.
Months later, every member of San Simon High School’s senior class walked across the stage to receive the prestigious degree.
It’s a remarkable accomplishment for any FFA chapter, but San Simon FFA is a rural school with fewer than 100 students, including 50 seventh- through 12th-grade students who are FFA members. Agricultural education is a requirement for those grades, which reflects the importance of the industry on the surrounding community.
Career Preparedness
San Simon FFA offers more than technical agricultural knowledge. Senior Joel Martinez plans to apply the leadership, team building and public speaking skills he learned through FFA in a career in the medical field.
Martinez hopes that his enthusiasm for participating in ag mechanics and the sense of accomplishment from earning his Arizona State FFA Degree will inspire younger members of his family to get involved in FFA.
“For me, it was really important to try that new thing and I had a lot of fun doing it,” he says. “No one in my family has ever even pursued anything related to FFA; I hope to be a role model.”
Senior Lindsay Hampton grew up in an FFA family — her mom also has a state degree — and she knew being part of San Simon FFA would help develop friendships, new skills and future opportunities.
“My family is very agriculturally driven,” she explains. “We are all farmers or florists and having worked with them and being part of those [industries] really made me want to get my state degree.”
Hampton plans to major in civil engineering in college. Her goal: Support agricultural communities by designing roads and infrastructure that serve farms and rural businesses. One of the judges Hampton met through an FFA competition recommended her for a summer internship with a local engineering firm, an experience that developed from the connections she made through the organization.
For Zamudio, watching San Simon FFA members encourage one another and work together to reach their goals is one of the greatest achievements of all.
“It was a really neat opportunity as a teacher to see them push each other to get it done,” he says. “Our next focus is on seeing if [the entire graduating class] can get their American FFA Degrees as well.”
