Amboy Junior High School has signed the charter and celebrated the establishment of its very own national FFA organization chapter.

Th celebration took place Nov. 10 at an open house.

In the past, Amboy Public Schools has only offered FFA, a student-led organization formerly called Future Farmers of America, to its high school students. The middle school FFA chapter offered to students in grades seven and eight was established Sept. 4, Kelly Viall, AJHS agriculture teacher said. Viall, the FFA adviser, was hired in August.

The push for involvement from younger grade levels was led by students who saw older family members in FFA and wanted to get involved themselves, Viall said.

“It really was student driven. I’ve taught middle school agriculture and done middle school FFA before, so I kind of brought in a skill set that helped to get that going,” Viall said.

One student has an older cousin who’s really involved with FFA, attended the state convention and saw that there’s middle school FFA divisions. Then they asked the district administration and school board members if Amboy could start its own middle school FFA chapter, Viall said.

“This is an amazing school to work at. The kids are great. We’re trying to get stuff off the ground here, so we’re working on getting the kids involved in all the opportunities that are available,” Viall said.

In FFA, students elect leaders, known as the officer team, and they compete against other schools. Amboy FFA has a total of 60 student members in 2025.

Some activities and conferences are separated by grade level but for Amboy FFA, its middle school members can participate in any of the activities that the high school members do, Viall said.

Some recent FFA events include a career development event and a grain fair where the students can show any of the fall crops they grow, such as corn, soybeans or pumpkins. They also had an agronomy and dairy foods contest which includes crops, weeds and seed identification as well as cheese identification and ways to tell if a cow’s milk is infected.