A group of Future Farmers of America students are preparing to compete at the National FFA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

“I am honored as a teacher to have these students competing at nationals. I am blessed to have great students and parents who have a winning attitude and work hard to succeed,” said Meredith McCurdy, FFA adviser for Lafayette High School.

The chapter has previously competed in various district and state level contests and will travel to the Oct. 28-31 convention.

McCurdy has advised the Lafayette FFA for the past seven years and each year they compete in all types of agriculture-related events such as welding, creed speaking, tractor operations and maintenance, tool identification and others. This year, members of the chapter are competing in Floriculture, State Display and National Chapter.

Abby Thweatt, Ashley Avent, Laura Brooke Billingsley and Megan St. Peters will judge in the floriculture while Riley Arbuckle, Edi Kent, Raegan Ramage, Koty Martin, Samantha Johnson, Thomas Hinton and Walker Westbrook compete in both State Display and National Chapter.

Kent, 17, is president of the national FFA team and is eager to head there.

“This will be my second year going to nationals and it is so very exciting,” she said. “There are people there from all 50 states at one convention, so it’s very exciting to be able to see all of the different cultures there.”

Kent is a senior and has been involved in FFA since eighth grade. She said the most important thing she has learned in preparing for competition has been the teamwork.