FALLS VILLAGE — The National FFA Organization is developing the next generation of leaders.
Each year, FFA chapters around the country celebrate National FFA Week. It’s a time to share what FFA is and the impact it has on members every day.
The FFA mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. FFA helps members discover their talent through hands-on experiences, which give members the tools to achieve real-world success.
A combined 850,823 students from throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have chosen to be a part of FFA. Of those members,116 are from our chapter. Each year these numbers grow as more young people become a part of the organization. FFA was chartered in 1928 as the Future Farmers of America.
The organization changed its name from the Future Farmers of America to the National FFA Organization. The name changed because FFA is not only for future farmers, but it is for any and all students despite what their plans are for the future. It is an organization that provides countless opportunities and develops leadership skills that can carry over to all careers.
Housatonic Valley FFA (HVFFA) members are involved in local, statewide and national events throughout the year. This past summer, students attended the Washington Leadership Conference (WLC), the Sound School chapter exchange, and the Alumni Picnic hosted at Laurelbrook Farm. While at WLC, students spent the week with fellow FFA members from all over the U.S. to develop leadership skills and ways to help their community.
This summer, HVFFA partnered with the Sound School in New Haven for a chapter exchange program. Members from our chapter were invited on a deep fishing excursion, and in exchange, we gave their chapter members a tour of agriculture in our part of the state. The Housatonic Valley FFA Alumni Association sponsors both of these summer activities.
HVFFA also has many activities and events throughout the school year to help members learn and grow. Students prepare for and compete in numerous state competitions called Career Development Events (CDEs) and Leadership Development Events (LDEs). This past November, the Ag Communications team (Anne Moran, Simon Markow, Hannah Johnson and Chris Crane) and Creed speaker (Riley Mahaffey) competed at the National FFA Convention representing Connecticut.
In addition, students attend IMAGE, COLT, JLC, State FFA Convention, and the National FFA Convention. We give back to our community by helping with the Falls Village Car Show, volunteering at the Big E and the Goshen Fair, and sponsoring a rabies clinic over the summer.
HVFFA chapter members are looking forward to spring competitions, conferences and our annual ag open house. We appreciate all the ways that the community supports our program.
Lauren Sorrell is a student reporter at HVRHS and a member of HVFFA.
Submitted
Melanie Rundall and Tyler Anderson worked at the FFA Holiday Store at HVRHS this past winter.
Travel league baseball came to Torrington Thursday, June 26, when the Berkshire Bears Select Team played the Connecticut Moose 18U squad. The Moose won 6-4 in a back-and-forth game. Two players on the Bears play varsity ball at Housatonic Valley Regional High School: shortstop Anthony Foley and first baseman Wes Allyn. Foley went 1-for-3 at bat with an RBI in the game at Fuessenich Park.
Anthony Foley, rising senior at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, went 1-for-3 at bat for the Bears June 26.Photo by Riley Klein
Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.
Pearson first encountered the world of alternative publications — magazines filled with experimental writing, artworks in the form of a book, and samizdat literature — as a young writer living in Berlin just before The Wall came down in 1989. Later, in New York City, she spent a great deal of time with artists “who were always making and assembling, whose continuous art-making made the thin membrane between art and life even more porous,” she explained.
Pearson traces the idea of publishing to a 2001 exhibition of artist-poet Joe Brainard. That show led to “The Nancy Book,” Siglio’s debut title in 2008, and she’s never looked back. The book contains over fifty full-page reproductions of Brainard’s dazzlingly accomplished and witty drawings of the cartoon strip character, Nancy. It includes essays and contributions by Robert Creeley, Ann Lauterbach, Frank O’Hara, Ron Padgett, and other poets of great renown, all thrilled to celebrate and remember Brainard (sometimes called “a poet’s artist”) who died of AIDS in 1994. Pearson said, ‘My first project with Brainard was such a good experience, I kept going. “
Since then, Pearson, the sole proprietor of Siglio, has designed, edited, and published over 40 books and other printed editions. Her books are characterized by unexpected juxtapositions of texts and images and collage-like assemblages, as well as for carefully designed and gorgeously printed volumes. Her list includes many “rediscoveries” of unpublished manuscripts and little-known publications. At the same time, she has commissioned new work from an impressive array of artists and writers such as Christian Marclay, Sophie Calle and Cecilia Vicinua among others.
Uncommon books at the intersection of art and literature.Richard Kraft
Though most Siglio books feature work by artists and writers from the 1960s to today, one standout— “Tantra Song” (2011) — showcases vibrant 17th-century Indian tantric paintings collected by poet-ethnographer Franck André Jammes, their modernist feel echoing Hilma af Klint or Brice Marden. Siglio also frequently draws on the spirit of the Fluxus movement, reissuing works by figures like John Cage and Ray Johnson with editions that honor their playful, ephemeral, and poetic origins.
Siglio also excels at photo-narratives rooted in highly specific, often eccentric concepts. “Memory” (2020), by avant-garde writer Bernadette Mayer, reproduces her journal and daily rolls of 35mm film from a month in the Berkshires in 1971, capturing the texture of each day. “Call and Response” (2022), created during COVID lockdown by composer and visual artist Christian Marclay, pairs his photographs of London’s quieted streets with musical scores composed in reply by his friend Bruce Beresford—each image in dialogue with sound.
Siglio books are sold through it’s website (sigliopress.com), as well as museum or specialty bookshops. (The Lenox Bookstore represents a number of Siglio books; the newly opened Lakeville Books & Stationery has copies of “Tantra Song.”) In all cases, Pearson strives to make “two or three degrees of connection” with each book buyer, including a “special gift” — often a piece of printed ephemera — with each purchase.
