Two Lena High School graduates recently received one of the highest FFA honors presented in the nation, becoming the first Lena students to receive the American FFA Degree in more than 10 years.
Joe Jagiello and Marlena Wagner, both 2013 graduates of Lena High School, accepted the American FFA Degree this fall at the National FFA Convention. The degree is bestowed on less than a half-percent of members each year, with 76 members in Wisconsin and 3,434 total receiving the honor in 2015.
Jagiello and Wagner were the only two FFA members in the immediate area who earned the degree.
They qualified for the award by demonstrating the highest level of commitment to FFA and showing significant accomplishments in their Supervised Agricultural Experience. Both worked on the family’s dairy farm, where they helped where needed, doing tasks such as milking to feeding cows, caring for young stock and working in the fields.
“I learned the value of hard working, as well as the idea of rolling with the punches, because farming isn’t a steady business, and every day brings something new,” Wagner said.
Wagner remains involved with FFA at the collegiate level and is pursuing a degree in dairy science at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Jagiello is working at Vanderloop Equipment in Lena as a parts assistant. He said he knows he will always be involved with agriculture.
“Being a farmer has always been something I wanted to do, and it is still my biggest option,” he said.
Both Jagiello and Wagner grew up in the agriculture setting and were involved in FFA through middle school and high school.
Jagiello held the positions of sentinel, vice president and co-president of the Lena FFA and received the Discovery, Greenhand and Chapter awards and State FFA Degree. He attended the Half Time Conference multiple times, the Sectional Leadership Workshop and Washington, D.C., Leadership Conference.
Wagner held the offices of reporter, vice president and co-president of the Lena FFA. She judged cattle at the World Dairy Expo, participated in the open and closing ceremonies at the State FFA Convention, and helped with community service projects. Like Jagiello, she received her State FFA Degree.
“Marlena and Joe went above and beyond to help the local chapter and other members in FFA,” said Roberta Windus, agriculture teacher and FFA adviser.
To be considered for the American FFA Degree, Jagiello and Wagner filled out an application of roughly 15 pages in length, providing information about the sports they played, job experience and awards received.
“I don’t know how to describe the application other than it being a really long application,” Jagiello said.
They accepted their awards on stage in front of thousands of people at the National FFA Convention in Louisville.
“Receiving the award at the national convention was an experience in itself,” Wagner said. “To be surrounded by thousands and thousands of blue and gold jackets is a feeling of pride.”
Both Jagiello and Wagner thanked Windus for motivating them to be involved in FFA in middle and high school and for helping them apply for the degree.
“She offered so much help with the application process, as well as being the driving force behind how Joe and I made it this far,” Wagner said.
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