On November 21, 2024, four Alva FFA members competed in the Northwest Area
American Farmers and Ranchers Speech Contest. Merritt Mantz competed with her speech “One
Second,” about educating people on the importance of safety in agriculture in the Intermediate
Agriculture Policy category and placed second, advancing to state. Avery McMurphy competed
with her speech “The Manhattan Project,” about agriculture terrorism in the Senior Agriculture
Policy category and placed third.
Katelee Martin competed with her speech “The Solution to
Pollution,” about sulfur pollution and fertilizers in the Senior Natural Resources category and
placed fifth. Jansen Shirley competed in the Senior Extemporaneous category.
Prepared speeches are six to eight minutes long, with five minutes for questions. To
compete in extemporaneous speeches, competitors receive a question for their speech to answer
and they have thirty minutes to research and create a speech on that question. They then give
their speech and answer questions.
This was the first speech contest of the year and these
members did phenomenally. Merritt Mantz will compete at the State AFR Speech Contest on
December 7, 2024, on the Oklahoma State University campus in Stillwater, Oklahoma
