Hannah Cole
7/30/2024
The Ramona Junior Fair was open to the public this year on July 26-28th with not only rides, games, and vendors but also an agriculture fair. Members of local 4H and Future Farmers of America clubs from across the county brought their animals to the Ramona Junior Fair to showcase the hard work put into raising them. Many participants auctioned their animals to the public, many sold pigs, steers, turkeys, goats, and rabbits. The Junior fair also auctions projects related to agriculture and home economics.
Ramona High School FFA chapter had a large turnout this year with many members raising animals and selling agricultural products as a part of their supervised agriculture projects. Students are required to spend certain amounts of hours on SAE projects depending on how long they’ve been a member. Many members chose to raise animals, others chose to make items including barbecues and clothing.
Sammy Manqueda, going into his third year of being an FFA member as a junior at Ramona High School is working towards earning the FFA State Degree which is awarded to Juniors who show leadership in FFA and meet other requirements, “Basically, what you have to do you have to have more than 200 hours in an SAE project for your state degree… I have two pigs right now… one's Notorious, Piggy Smalls, and the other one is Flathead. Sometimes I clean up ranches and stuff like that, but I usually do more on my pigs” said Manqueda.
“I am excited to do another animal next year for FFA and I'm trying to just help my friends with other animals,” said James Hayes, an incoming sophomore. After raising 2 pigs this year Hayes described his favorite part of the fair was seeing his fellow chapter members again.
Hadassah Ingvoldstead, a recently graduated senior auctioned 2 cows this year, her experience in FFA and agriculture inspired her to pursue a career in teaching agriculture. “I wanna come back and do these fairs and teach agriculture to local youth. Because I just think it's important, one, to know where our food comes from and to teach people how to grow their food and what it's (agriculture) about…also to give kids the confidence that I got. Because I really didn't have a place that I belonged to and FFA gave me that place.”
“It's (FFA) given me a lot of confidence, like showing me that I can do hard things. I felt like giving up a lot with these animals. But not even with that, like I do public speaking with an FFA. It's hard, but it's given me the confidence to realize that I could do hard things and overcome it and learn and be better. And it's shown me really who I am as a person and how much I can take.” said Ingvoldstead
Overall this year Ramona’s Junior fair was a big hit, make sure to stop by next year when you get a chance!
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