All of his life, Chadley Davis has been a big fan of driving tractors.

“It’s pretty relaxing sometimes because you’re just out there in the big wide open field and you have a lot of room to yourself,” the Montgomery County senior said. “Everything is going fine. You can just work and it’s pretty simple.”

Davis and several other Montgomery County FFA members got to drive their tractors to school through frigid conditions on Feb. 24 as part of FFA Week. Davis said driving tractors has been his favorite FFA Week activity since he was a freshman.

“It’s something you will remember 10 or 15 years from now,” Davis said. “It’s cool because you can say that you did it and not very many people get to do it. You get to show off what you’re passionate about.”

The other activities the MCHS FFA members did during the FFA Week include visiting St. Paul Lutheran Church in Jonesburg on Feb. 20, playing golf at Topgolf in Chesterfield on Feb. 21, driving a farm truck to school on Feb. 23 and hosting a barbecue on Feb. 24.

Davis said he was definitely excited about FFA Week, when all FFA chapters across the country have activities to raise awareness about the role the organization plays in agricultural education.

“I was looking forward to it, especially this being my last year,” Davis said.

Besides Davis, 15 other MCHS FFA seniors spent their final FFA Week. They were president Izzy Freymuth, vice-presidents Heather Stille and Hailey Terry, sentinel Josh Gilbert, Hayden Francois, Ryan Futhey, Drew Lockhart, Grace Lovell, Dawson McCown, Caleb Osborne, Ethan Rakers, Annie Robinson, Makenna Schmidt, Anna Teson and Makenzie Woods.

“Four of us are on the officer team, so it’s been really fun to get to work with them the last three years,” Freymuth said. “This year for seminar, all of the seniors are together in class, so it’s been really fun having time to hang out with your seniors and talk about what our plans are after school. We talk about college a lot. We have a pretty good senior class.”

On Feb. 22, several seniors got to participate in a trivia game that focused on the lives of the FFA advisors, Amanda Sullivan and Mary Leykamp.

“Every Tuesday during FFA week, we always have some sort of activity during a class day,” Leykamp said. “Last year, it was an actual trivia game because we wanted to be COVID-friendly. The year before that, we did a tractor pull.”

FFA members wore their official dress uniforms on Feb. 23.

During a recent FFA meeting, Davis made the motion to add a drive your farm truck to school day to the FFA Week schedule.

“If you have a truck like you haul or grain on the field with or if you have a semi truck, you can drive it to school,” Davis said. “If you’re on a family farm and you have a truck, like a pick up truck that doesn’t get out very much that means something to you and family a lot because it’s been around for generations, you’re allowed to bring that to school and show it off.”

Freymuth, who is also the FFA Area V president, said she’s going to miss being a member of the MCHS FFA. She plans to attend the University of Missouri-Columbia next year and major in agricultural education and communication leadership with a minor in animal science.

“It’s been the highlight of my four years of high school,” Freymuth said. “During my freshman year, the one thing that got me to come to school everyday was I got to have an ag class. That’s what got me through.”

Freymuth said she’s happy that the underclassmen are being active in all of the FFA events this year.

“The underclassmen have really wanted to sign up for events,” she said. “We have our flag day and the kids really like it. It’s a competition to get to sign up for things because the underclassmen want to do so much, which is really nice to see for the seniors. It feels good to pass the torch to the kids who want to do stuff. This year has been full of kids volunteering and working hard to keep the program going.”