Cupp in top four for proficiency, receives FFA American Degree

This year’s National FFA Convention was an important one for Imperial FFA’s Morayah Cupp.
Now a sophomore in college, Cupp capped off an FFA career that began in the eighth grade by receiving her American Degree and finishing in the top four of ag services proficiency.
Agricultural Proficiency Awards are given to FFA members who, through their supervised agricultural experience, have developed specialized skills that they can apply toward their future careers. There are 45 different proficiency areas.
Cupp began her SAE, Moe’s Mobile Coops, as an eighth grader. She started with one coop at the Imperial Manor, mostly as a community service, she said.
At most she had eight coops across the community, this past year she had five coops. Cupp also started selling pullets a couple years ago.
In 2021 she was the State Star in Agribusiness during the April convention for her SAE, then in 2022 won the Ag Services proficiency area at state.
Imperial FFA Advisor Jason Speck said Cupp spent years fine tuning her SAE to get it to the level it is today,
After judging of her written plan over the summer and later an interview, Cupp was announced as one of the top four from across the country.
Cupp said she wished she could have put more time into the project as her only focus.
She appreciated the help of  Speck and the efforts he made, Cupp added.
Cupp was also able to walk the stage in Indianapolis and receive her American Degree, which she called the end goal from when she started FFA.
It’s something you have to work for to prove you want it, she said.
Cupp has remained active in FFA as a student at Oklahoma State where she’s an ag education major.
With a mind set of teaching in a rural area, Cupp said she hopes to inspire FFA members to step out of their comfort zones and see that there’s much more to do.

Although she’s in her second year of college, Cupp is taking junior level classes and will begin her field experience and job shadowing soon.
For those wishing to hear more about Cupp’s experiences, she recently completed interviews for Off-Farm Income Podcast and Blue and Gold Magazine.
Parli pro results changed
In a change from last week’s results, it has been announced that the Imperial FFA parli pro team received a Gold Emblem, rather than a Silver Emblem.
It was previously announced that the top four teams received Gold Emblems and the next eight teams, including Imperial FFA, received silver.
In the most recent results, the top 12 teams were all awarded Gold Emblems.