In honor of National FFA Week, LA students (from left) Julia Deitrick, Jillian McLaughlin, and Amelia Starbird challenged students to agricultural and FFA trivia during Lincoln Academy’s March 7 Friday Community Meeting.
Lincoln Academy senior Jillian McLaughlin is passionate about agricultural education. Hailing from Illinois, with a family of farmers who cultivate several hundred acres of corn, soybeans, fruits and vegetables, she was raised to see the value of teaching the values of farming to young people as part of their core subjects.
Lincoln Academy senior Jillian McLaughlin is the founder of the school’s new FFA chapter.
When she moved to Bristol to live with her grandparents and attend Lincoln Academy last year, McLaughlin was surprised to find that there was no FFA chapter at the school, and she immediately set out to remedy that situation. Within a few months, McLaughlin chartered the first ever FFA chapter in Lincoln Academy history.
FFA, formally known as the Future Farmers of America, is dedicated to allowing students to explore interests and opportunities within agriculture. The national organization, established in 1928, is the largest youth organization in the United States, comprised of over 9,000 independent chapters and currently has approximately 1,027,273 individual members.
“I have been a member of the National FFA Organization for five years now,” said McLaughlin. “Since joining the organization, I have developed a true appreciation for agriculture and those who dedicate their lives to it.”
“Jillian has a real passion for agriculture and animal science,“ said Kristie Houghton, Lincoln Academy School Counselor and faculty advisor to the new FFA chapter. “Her leadership fosters a sense of community and shared purpose among her peers.”
According to McLaughlin, the FFA organization is founded on four guiding principles: Learning to Do; Doing to Learn; Earning to Live; and Living to Serve. FFA members are exposed to various aspects of the agricultural industry and are advised by industry professionals as they develop career-based skills to take with them as they enter the workforce. These skills are reinforced through friendly competition at the Section, District, State, and National levels. Additionally, the National FFA Organization and its partners have one of the largest scholarship programs in the country, awarding students nationwide over 2.5 million dollars annually.
Lincoln Academy’s FFA chapter currently has 10 members who have initiated activities aimed at increasing agricultural education in LA’s classrooms and beyond. Members attended the Agricultural Trade Show at the Augusta Civic Center earlier this winter, and hope to visit a sugar house this month as well as local farms and aquaculture sites this spring. “I am trying to tap into Maine ag and aquaculture, and show members that they don’t have to be farmers in the traditional sense to be involved in food systems,” said McLaughlin.
To celebrate National FFA week, LA club members organized a rubber duck hunt around campus, and shared agricultural trivia at school-wide assembly. “Our goal is to bring the student body together. At my old school FFA Week was a large-scale production. That’s where the idea of the duck hunt came from. It was a huge hit that all students could participate in, and afterwards students came and asked about joining FFA. We had a whole day where every subject taught something related to agriculture inside the classroom–we are not there yet, but maybe someday!”
In addition to bringing FFA to Lincoln Academy, McLaughlin has taken her advocacy for agriculture education statewide. Her efforts, which she dubs “Cultivating Conversations,” work to educate the public on the importance of agriculture education for youth in Maine and throughout the country.
Since August of 2024, she has presented to groups around the state including the Maine Tuesday Forum in Bangor, The Bangor Kiwanis Chapter at Beal University, the 2025 Maine State Agricultural Trade Show, and to representatives at the Maine State House. In January she attended the Commissioner of Agriculture’s luncheon where she met Governor Janet Mills. She spoke on the “Be a Farmer” panel sponsored by the Maine Association of Agricultural Affairs, and on March 18 she will be at the State House for Agriculture Legislative Day, which is part of the Governor’s Maine Youth in Agriculture initiative.
McLaughlin says her mission is to see legislation passed making agriculture a core subject for Maine schools. “This community is so deeply tied to various aspects of agriculture. We owe it to our children to provide them with a deep understanding of the world around them. The agricultural industry is the United States’s largest employer, providing more than 22.1 million Americans with jobs annually. In the coming years, agriculture will continue to grow in importance as our population continues to rise at exponential rates. Additionally, America’s agriculture industry is beginning to face intense hardships as agriculturalists begin navigating the challenges associated with large-scale food production and climate change. Schools nationwide must begin to educate students about these growing concerns and work to inspire individuals to dedicate themselves to the preservation of our country’s food supply.”
“Jilly is a force to be reckoned with,” said Houghton. “She inspires me, she inspires her peers, all while juggling a wide range of responsibilities, from FFA to a course load laden with APs. Before I met Jilly I never knew FFA was a thing, and now I can’t imagine Lincoln Academy without a chapter.”
