Olympia High School Hosts First FFA Career Development Event

By Collin Loeffler, OHS Torch reporter

            On Wednesday, March 2nd, the Olympia FFA chapter hosted two career development events, job interview and food science, after school at Olympia high school for the first time.

            A career development event, or CDE, is a judging contest where high school students are quizzed on a particular subject such as dairy foods, livestock, record books, etc. Students from other FFA chapters compete to see who has the most knowledge on each subject.

            Olympia High School has never hosted a CDE until March 2nd. Students from six schools came to Olympia to compete in job interview and food science.

            Students competing in job interview have to submit a resume, complete job applications, and participate in mock interviews. Students participating in food science have to have an understanding of food product knowledge and food safety issues.

            FFA president, Ellie Schmidgall, said, “It was really cool that we had the opportunity to host a CDE. Going and participating in career development events have always been one of my favorite parts of FFA.”

            The competition needed the help of many Olympia FFA members. Helpers had to escort each participate to a specific room and supervise them while they completed their applications.

            Junior FFA member, Ashley Miller, said, “I hope that our chapter will get more respect from other chapters now that we’ve hosted an event. Before now it has just been other schools in our chapter hosting them.”

            Olympia’s cafeteria, library, and multiple classrooms were used for this competition. Olympia FFA members Karl Fasse, Genna Vanwye, and Brock Gottschalk participated in the job interview CDE.