CC hosts 400 FFA members for leadership camp

Approximately 400 students were on the Clarendon College campus early last week for the annual Area I FFA Leadership Camp.

FFA officials said the camp has been held at CC since about 1969, when the late Jerry Hawkins and others started the program with just about 15 area kids, who went skiing at the newly opened Lake Greenbelt to close out their camp.

James Baxter, a former FFA sponsor who was at that first camp, said girls were not allowed in FFA when the camp started and that Hawkins enlisted the aid of a home economics teacher who invited girls to the camp dance.

FFA’s Area I is bordered by Lubbock County on the south and extends north the width of the Texas Panhandle. The area is comprised of 96 schools represented by 108 sponsors.

The camp at Clarendon College is modeled after the state FFA leadership camp, and Area I officers actually run the programs at the camp with the support of adult sponsors and employees of the college.