Buddy Taylor FFA continues their tradition of winning

Palm Coast Observer
News

For 18 years the FFA students at Buddy Taylor have come in first in the District Forestry Contest. This year the team came home with first and second place. The competition was at Silver River State Park, near Silver Springs.

FFA is a family affair

Leslie Dupont was Leslie Pellicer when she was in R.D. Davis’ FFA group.

“I was in the FFA from seventh to 12th grade,” she said. “My mom, Rhonda Pellicer, was in FFA when she was at FPC and my husband, Lee Dupont was too.”

Now the tradition continues with her daughter Carley Koehler, a seventh-grade student at Buddy Taylor Middle School, also in Davis’ class.

Also like her mother, Carley is on a winning team, an FFA team that has won the District Forestry Contest for 18 consecutive years.

Dupont said she wanted her daughter to take advantage of all of the opportunities the FFA provides.

Dupont competed in Parliamentary Procedure, a challenge for her since she was not comfortable speaking in front of people.

“I was almost held back in kindergarten because I wouldn’t talk,” she said. “Now I am a teacher and public speaking doesn’t bother me.”

“One thing they had to do this year was mapping, where they had to read a topographical map,” Davis said. “They can ask anything on that map, how high an area is, which way a stream flows, write a land description.”

Why do they need to know this information?

“I used to think the same thing, why do we need to know this? I ran into an actual land problem, mine personally. I never thought about it a whole lot, we just teach the kids, until I ran into that problem. When I ran into that, all of the knowledge paid off because I knew what a land description was, I knew where my boundaries started, and I knew that I didn’t own the piece of property the county told me I did. Hopefully it’s something they will never have to use, but they will know what they are talking about if they need it.”

Where does the BTMS FFA usually rank?

Davis likes to be in the top 10, which is good since that’s where his BTMS teams are generally ranked. At the district competition the teams took every ribbon available.

“There are 18 possible ribbons at district and we took 18,” he said. “The A team came in first and the B team came in second. Pierson Taylor (Middle School) took third.”

Why do the students think FFA is important?

‘It makes it look better on your college resume,” Teagan said.

It’s important, because you might need to know some of this stuff in the future,” Joey Binford said. “Also, to put on a resume for college.”

“I want to be a vet and if the animals get diseases I will have to know how to treat it,” Sydney Latham said.

“I just feel this is just a really good learning experience,” Kristin Brinker said.

“I think it’s really important to be part of a team, because then you have all of these people that you know you can trust and they are there for you,” Hope Brock said.

“The experiences are important and we are like one big family,” Carley Koehler said.

State Competition

"We won the state competition in 2009," Davis said. "This year the competition is Nov. 12 and 13 on the grounds of the Florida Forestry Museum in Perry, FL.