Emily Kilmer
Brookston, Indiana
Tri-County FFA
Travis Scherer & Ashley Steuer, Advisors
Emily Kilmer, 18, is excited for opportunity to serve the 12,506 members of the Indiana FFA Association as the Indiana FFA State Secretary. Emily is the daughter of Jason and Patricia Kilmer.
Throughout the past four years, Emily has contributed much to FFA. By previously being Tri-County Chapter Vice-President as well as District I president, she has had the opportunity to serve a wide variety of members. Emily has had the opportunity to attend various conferences such as PLT, Executive Committee meetings and trainings, and serving as a counselor twice for SOAR and once for FIRE. After attending Washington Leadership conference in 2015 and National Convention the past four years, Emily has developed a passion mentoring younger FFA members. She has also been successful at National Convention placing 4th twice and 7th once in Agriscience and being on a silver emblem team for Marketing and Agricultural Issues. On the State level, Emily placed 1st in Agricultural Education and achieved runner up for Leadership Ambassador.
Emily has been involved in many Career Development Events, including Prepared Public Speaking, earning first at district I convention. She has also competed in Soils Evaluation—earning second place individual in her area and third place state team, allowing her team to place 7th at National judging in Oklahoma. Emily has won Creed speaking at the district level, placing seventh at state. Community service is a passion of Emily’s with her favorite service opportunity being Circle City Relief. She has helped coordinate may volunteer activities including a Rake n’ Run at her church as well as several park clean up days.
Emily’s Supervised Agricultural Experience involves a wide variety of areas. The first is Agriscience Research where she designs experiments testing the efficiency of wind turbine blade shapes. Continuing her research, she tested the turbidity of soils in water as well as tested if the turbidity of ditch water was affected by tilling methods. Emily is the 2017 State Star in Agriscience. Her other areas consist of raising lambs for 4-H, raising chickens for egg sales, mowing lawns, being an aid for the agriculture room, and designing websites for livestock businesses. Each of these areas offer an unique opportunity for Emily to broaden her horizon and develop marketing and business skills.
Outside of FFA, Emily has been active in in school and her community. Being a ten year 4-H member, Emily has had the opportunity to serve as her club Secretary and Vice-President. Through her projects, she has received six grand champion titles; including public speaking, soils and water science, and foods. The Catholic Youth Organization of Sacred Heart elected Emily as President for 2016-2017 having previously been Secretary. Within her school, Emily was elected the Executive Member of National Honor Society and is an active member in Student Council. She was a key driving force in creating the “Dear Younger Me” program with the 6th graders where she teaches lessons about life skills required for middle school. Volunteering is also a passion of Emily’s. She has completed many service projects with her favorite being helping those less fortunate shop for Christmas gifts at Circle City Relief.
Emily is ranked 3rd out of 48 students in her class, maintaining a 4.01 out of 4.0 GPA. She graduated with an Academic Honors Diploma in May. Emily will attend Purdue University and major in Agriculture Education with the hope to one day becoming a professor and helping students conduct research that will change the future of agriculture.