On Saturday, March 7th, the Vegetable Crop Evaluation, Ag Sales, Nursery/Landscape, Poultry, and Livestock teams traveled to UC Davis to compete at the field day. Our teams spent countless days studying for their CDE team’s first contest of the season. The previous day on Friday, March 6th, the Parli Pro teams competed at UC Davis as well. Poultry placed 5th high team in their contest. Congratulations! Thank you to all of our warriors for their hard work and dedication in preparing for the first contest of the season. Good luck in the rest of your competitions!

On March 3rd, Righetti FFA hosted the sectional Parli Pro and Co-Ops contest. The Parli Pro contest consists of a 6 member team, each member is given a topic to debate about using parliamentary law, and Co-Ops is a test on farming knowledge. Our advanced Parli Pro team placed 2nd with  Eddie Munoz getting high chair #2 and our Novice team placed 3rd with Payton Scott-Nelson getting high chair. Our Co-Ops team also placed 1st with Taiz Delgado placing 2nd and Sonora Robertson placing 3rd! This contest was a great success! Congratulations to everyone who competed!

Yesterday, February 19th was our annual National FFA week sectional dodgeball competition! We had so much fun playing with the other schools in our section and mingling with the other chapters.

On February 12, 2020, a group of freshman went to Arroyo Grande High School to compete for creed speaking. Out of the 7 high schools that went, Isaiah Calderon, Jackie Trejo, Avalino Guillen, Milli Velasco, and Lily Poland moved on to regional speaking contests. Freshman Emma Taylor said,  “Reciting the FFA creed was a very good experience. It helped me in my public speaking a lot. I'm no longer afraid to talk to new people and in front of a crowd.” The FFA creed is a five paragraph long passage that freshmen

memorize and say in front of judges. After they recite it, they are asked three questions about the passage or agriculture. The top half speakers from section goes onto regionals in King City.

On Saturday, January 25, Righetti FFA had huge success at the Reedley College Winter Field Day. The tree pruning team travelled there to compete in their first contest of the year after lots of hard study. They made it worth it as Jose Miramontes, Zachary Hightower, Ashley Palin and Eddie Munoz placed 5th team in the contest overall and Ashley Palin placed 2nd high individual in the peach tree reasons class. Eddie Munoz said, “The contest was a great learning experience and lots of fun. We look forward to competing next weekend in Fresno”. Next weekend on February 1st they will compete for the title of state champion. Good luck!

This year, Righetti FFA Travelled to Monterey California on January 25 and 27th to attend the MFE and ALA conferences. Seniors and Juniors attended the ALA conference. This conference gives the students a chance to improve themselves in becoming a leader and developing traits it takes to become a great FFA member in the program. Students that attended this conference said it was a great experience and met a ton of new students from different chapters along the coast. I recall this event as a very memorable experience and learned how we could improve ourselves and our chapter. Most of the students that went to this conference said it was a great conference and are very happy that they attended this conference and made many new friends. They took what they learned back to their chapters and shared their ideas in becoming more focused on how we could improve and finding the strength within all our members.

On January 22nd, 150 second year FFA members in Righetti FFA received their chapter degrees. The chapter degree is the highest degree that a chapter can bestow upon a member, aside from the greenhand degree that is received freshman year. These students completed two years of an ag course here at Righetti High school. Congratulations to all students who received your chapter degree this year, we hope that you keep up the good work in receiving your state degree next year!

Righetti FFA held the annual Kinderpatch on October 25th, 2019 with the best turn out so far. We had a new layout using the whole agriculture area, which made more space for the activities. There were snacks and beverages for the kids to have after going to different activities. We had over two hundred student volunteers who lead in activities such as cookie decorating, bounce house, hay maze, and even a petting zoo. Over 600 kindergarteners and first graders from all over Santa Maria and Orcutt were able to attend our Kinderpatch. We are extremely thankful for all of our student volunteers, attendees, and sponsors for this event and look forward to next year’s Kinderpatch!

The very first Santa Barbara County Farm Day Dinner was held on September 27, 2019 at Tres Hermanas Winery in Sisquoc. The farm day dinner was held to help raise money for "See Ag" which put's on workshops and lessons for elementary schools to promote agriculture. The farm day dinner consisted of dinner, desert, a silent auction, and a live auction. There was 16 Righetti FFA members who attended this community service event. The students helped set up and decorate the event with Pioneer Valley FFA and Santa Maria FFA students. The FFA chapters also helped with the live auction. After dinner and the auctions we helped clean up. Overall it was a great event for our students and and it was another demonstration of FFA students helping in the community.