WINNER OF THE 2020 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2021
HermistonHerald.com
EasternOregonMarketplace.com
Growth, community in FFA
Students refl ect
on what they
learn through
the program
use hand gestures to demonstrate parts of
her speech about artifi cial insemination of
cows.
“I was so nervous, but I ended up win-
ning state last year so I guess it worked,”
she said.
‘An irreplaceable experience’
Alexis Leathers, an HHS junior, admit-
ted she joined FFA only because her mom
pushed her into it.
“It honestly didn’t spark any interest,
because when I thought of agriculture, I just
thought of fi elds and crops and that’s it,”
she said. “But it’s so much more to it than
that. There are so many components and
opportunities in things like technology.”
She ended up embracing the program
whole-heartedly, and in 2019 won state for
food science in what she called an “irre-
placeable experience.”
One thing Leathers said she has enjoyed
is how much support past and present FFA
members give each other. When she got
pigs to show during her freshman year, for
example, she didn’t know anything about
raising pigs, but got plenty of pointers.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she
said. “I called (a friend) and said, ‘I can’t
even get them in the trailer.’”
She said the biggest thing she has learned
from FFA so far is that anyone can show
leadership and be an example to others.
“You don’t need a title to aff ect some-
body,” she said.
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
When Hermiston High School sopho-
more Kylie Temple started high school, she
considered herself a “city girl at heart” who
had never had much to do with anything
agricultural.
After hearing about the opportunities for
traveling, scholarships and networking pro-
vided by FFA (formerly known as Future
Farmers of America), she decided to give it
a try, however.
“I’ve learned it’s so much more since
then,” she said.
Temple was one of fi ve local FFA stu-
dents who sat down for an interview
together on Wednesday, March 10, to share
their experience as they prepare for a virtu-
al-only state convention this week.
She said after the camaraderie of her
fi rst year of FFA, it was diffi cult to have
that experience end abruptly last spring,
just before the state convention.
“All of us, the chapter was just really
close, so we were just really used to going
on road trips together and touring an
onion factory or whatever, and we went
from that to not seeing each other at all,”
she said.
Since then, she said, they’ve done “a
little bit of everything” to keep the chap-
ter going, most often over video chat. They
have already competed over video in some
statewide competitions and will have a
local socially-distanced “watch party” for
the state convention rather than traveling to
participate in person.
“You have to make sure your personal-
ity shines through the screen,” Temple said
of competing in subjects virtually this year.
“It’s defi nitely been an adjustment, but
being a generation that has been involved
in technology, I think we’ve made that
adaptation.”
The country girl
Cidney Estes, also an HHS sophomore,
also hesitated about joining FFA at fi rst, but
for opposite reasons of the “city girl” Tem-
ple. Estes grew up in an agricultural fam-
ily, riding horses and raising animals, and
thought she didn’t need to add even more
of that sort of thing to her life.
She started hanging out in the FFA
room, however, and the people she met
Finding a calling
Shandie Britt/Contributed Photo
FFA student Elizabeth Doherty, left, Blue Mountain District reporter, and Alexis Leathers, Blue
Mountain District president, are pictured in the agricultural sciences classroom at Hermiston
High School.
“FFA BROUGHT OUT A SIDE OF ME
THAT I NEVER KNEW I HAD, AND
NOW IT’S WHO I AM.”
— Anna Guerrero, Hermiston High School senior
there “fl ipped the switch.”
“I did so much (for FFA) my freshman
year, I’d be in here until 8 at night,” she
said.
One area she said FFA has really helped
her improve is in public speaking. Estes
said when she started out, she would stand
stiffl y and stare straight ahead, deliver-
ing her speech in a monotone. But advisor
Shandie Britt and others taught her to be
more conversational, walk around and use
hand gestures.
She and the other girls laughed over the
memory of how embarrassed she was to
Anna Guerrero, a senior, said before she
came to the high school she didn’t know
anything about agriculture, but took an ag
biology class and was persuaded by Leah
Smith, the FFA advisor at the time, to get
involved. She loved it.
“This was my safe place,” she said, ges-
turing to the ag sciences classroom.
Through FFA she had opportunities to go
into younger classrooms and teach students
about agriculture, and it sparked a love of
teaching that she plans to pursue after grad-
uation this year. She said if it weren’t for
FFA being a part of her high school experi-
ence, she probably wouldn’t know yet what
she wanted to do, and she wouldn’t have
gained as much confi dence as she did over
the past four years.
“FFA brought out a side of me that I
never knew I had, and now it’s who I am,”
she said.
Making lifelong friends
Abigail Conner, a sophomore, said she
got involved in FFA because she remem-
bers her brother participating. Now she
wants to pursue a career in agriculture.
“People think it’s just showing animals,
See FFA, Page A11
Rally pushes for school fi ve days a week
By BRYCE DOLE
STAFF WRITER
Garett Robinson stood with
his brother and a friend beside the
fi elds bordering Hermiston High
School, each holding signs calling
for an end to a monotonous year
with one message in common —
“fi ve full days.”
The three boys were part of
a group of more than two dozen
people who gathered for a rally
at the high school on Saturday,
March 13, calling for changes in
state coronavirus guidelines that
are preventing students from fully
returning to in-person classes. The
rally marked the one-year anniver-
sary of students’ last day of classes
before schools across Oregon were
shut down in 2020.
“We’re not learning as much.
We’re going to be pretty much
behind next year,” said Robin-
son, who will get to return to the
classroom at Armand Larive Mid-
dle School part time on Monday,
March 22.
Robinson enjoys school. He
likes science, spending time with
teachers, having fun with friends
INSIDE
and “becoming smarter so you
don’t fail when you get older.” But
fi nding help during online-school
has been challenging, he said, and
he misses sports and his friends.
“We’ve been doing the same
thing over and over,” Grant Olsen, a
student at Hermiston High School,
said. “Nothing’s diff erent. We wake
up, do the same thing over and over.
Very little sports. Very little friends.
Nothing really exciting.”
Oregon Department of Educa-
tion rules currently require school
children and employees to stay 6
feet apart while in a school, with
at least 36 square feet of space for
each student in a classroom. That
means a classroom can only have
about 10 to 12 students at a time,
roughly half the size of a normal
classroom.
Shane Robinson, Garett’s father,
who helped organize the rally, said
he’s concerned those rules will
keep students from the classrooms
through the coming months.
“If that’s going to carry through
to the fall, they’re not going to see
a full day of school on a consis-
tent basis,” he said. “You can’t do
it. Not with the spacing we have.
A3  More opportunities to get
COVID-19 vaccinations open locally
Bryce Dole/Hermiston Herald
A group of parents, teachers and students hold signs along West Highland Avenue in Hermiston on Saturday,
March 13, 2021, during a rally in favor of a full return to in-person schooling.
Unless you’re going to magically
rebuild schools overnight, it just
isn’t going to happen.”
The rally took place a day
after a top public health offi cial
A6  Volunteers plant trees in
downtown Umatilla
announced in a press conference
on Friday, March 12, that the state
was considering reducing required
distancing in schools from 6 feet
to 3 feet, which would allow stu-
A7  Restrictions lift as Morrow
County moves to lower risk level
dents to get more hours of in-per-
son instruction.
See Rally, Page A11
A8  Boardman honors
distinguished citizens