FFA Member of the Week: Living by the Motto

Name: Jenna Schyma

FFA Chapter: Foley

Year in School: Senior

Favorite Color: Blue

Fun Fact: Jenna is a country girl at heart and FFA has helped her embrace that.

Jenna first joined the Foley FFA chapter as a 10th grader because she thought it sounded like a lot of fun. Jenna was excited about meeting new people and trying new things that had a common theme of agriculture. Both FFA and agriculture have hit close to home for Jenna, her dad is currently a dairy farmer and he was in FFA as a student as well.

Besides being involved in CDE contests of horse judging, dairy cattle evaluation, and extemporaneous speaking, Jenna has also been an officer. This year, she is currently the Foley treasurer. Jenna enjoys her position on the team because she likes to keep financial records for her chapter. Jenna even took on the challenge of the chapter fruit sales fundraiser. She spent countless hours organizing the orders, handling money, and submitting the orders. Jenna is proud to say that she helped to established a new record in total fundraiser sales!

When asked what Jenna’s favorite part in the FFA was, Jenna simply said, “Helping the community and seeing improvements in our chapter.” One activity that sticks out when educating the community surrounding Foley about FFA and agricultural education is the barnyard at the Benton County Fair. Jenna believes it is a huge event for the community and always attracts a good crowd. Jenna and her fellow chapter members enjoy sharing their knowledge about farm animals with others.

One notable award that Jenna recently received at the 84th Minnesota FFA Convention was the Star in Agribusiness. Her SAE project started with her learning some basic horse training methods from a neighbor and then providing riding lessons to an autistic child. After witnessing the positive results in behavior from the client, Jenna looked further into hippotherapy and found a new career possibility that involved her passion for horses.

Jenna is currently using her academic and SAE interest in therapy to become a PATH International certified instructor, which means Jenna will become a registered instructor to give horseback riding lessons to children with special needs! She will do this at Sharadise Therapeutics which is where she is currently employed. 

Jenna is currently a senior in high school and plans to attend St. Cloud State University in the fall in order to begin a major of biomedical science in the pre-occupational therapy program. After finishing her program, she will attend either the University of Minnesota or St. Scholastica in Duluth for grad school and get a masters in occupational therapy. As you can probably tell, Jenna has her future mapped out well, and there is no doubt FFA has helped to prepare Jenna for the future challenges she will embrace.

Jenna's FFA involvement is a perfect example of the FFA motto:

Congratulations Jenna on your hard work and commitment to the Foley FFA chapter, agricultural education, and community service.