MOSES LAKE — Arielle Montoya of Moses Lake and Tessa Hauskin of Ephrata will serve as Future Farmers of America officers next year for Washington state. Montoya was named state treasurer and Hauskin state reporter.

“It’s a big deal,” said Ephrata High School FFA advisor Landra Kosa. “It’s a pretty rigorous process to be chosen to be a state officer.”

In the history of Moses Lake High School, only five students have attained the honor, said FFA Advisor Tony Kern, one in the 1970s and four others, including Montoya, since 2014. Hauskin is the first Tiger elected to state office since 2008, Kosa said.

Being elected to state office in FFA isn’t just a matter of throwing their hat in ring, Kosa explained. The candidate submits an application and then undergoes a series of interviews and question-and-answer sessions. They also deliver “Stand and Deliver” speeches, in which they’re given a topic and allowed a short time to prepare. Those competitions are used to winnow the field down to a top 10 list.

“They narrowed down the pool based on the first half of the process,” Kosa said. “Then they had to give a speech in front of about 2,000 people, and the delegates voted based on the speech.”

The voting and the interviews are scored together, and the six top scorers are elected, she said. There are six officer positions: president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, reporter and sentinel, according to the Washington FFA website.

“The president is whoever scored the highest through the process,” Kosa said. “The second is the vice president, then secretary, treasurer, and so on.”

The two officers were both seniors when they were elected, which means they’ll take a year off between high school and college to serve, Kern said.

“Because of the dedication that they’re making to the office, they put their college and other things to the side,” he said. “None of these kids will be attending college (next year). If they’re working it will be a side thing, very part time. They’ll devote pretty much the whole year to serving the kids in FFA. It’s something that they have to be really committed to.”

The officers will spend the summer in training, Kern said, and also training the officers from Washington’s nine districts. Once the school year begins, they’ll travel to every school in the state that has an FFA program and take over classes for a day to give the students leadership training. They’ll also perform advocacy work in Olympia and finish off the year putting on the state FFA convention, which will be in Pullman this year.

“They’ll be like rock stars within FFA,” Kern said. “Our FFA members know the state officers and get excited when they talk to them. It’s an opportunity to (provide) mentorship.”

Montoya was very timid and quiet when she came into FFA as a freshman, Kern said. She qualified for the state competition by delivering the FFA Creed in Spanish, and that gave her confidence, he said.

“She was an officer her sophomore and junior years,” Kern said. “Her senior year, she was her chapter president and also a district officer.”

Despite some obstacles she’s had to overcome, Kern said, Montoya has been an example for other FFA students.

“She’s always looking out for the goof of the chapter,” he said. “Those leadership skills come through.”

She’s earned the respect of other FFA students and offices, he said. “It’s something that our chapter is very proud about.”

Hauskin was something of a pioneer in the Ephrata FFA program, Kosa said.

“When she came to our FFA chapter, we didn’t have any students showing goats (at the fair),” she said. “Tessa brought that to our FFA chapter. She mentored a lot of first-time showmen, and she was really good at mentoring them. We’ve had multiple students get grand champion with their goat projects … Tessa had a huge influence and impact on those students’ success.”

The success went both ways, Kosa added. “She’s a successful goat showman, but she got just as much enjoyment out of mentoring those kids,” she said. “I think we’re up to six or more students who show goats, and it wasn’t because I was pushing it at all. It was Tessa’s influence.”

    Moses Lake High School FFA student Arielle Montoya has been elected state FFA treasurer.