FFA Behind the Emblem: Zumbrota Mazeppa

The Zumbrota Mazeppa 2025-26 officer team — Ryker Proctor (from left), Maggie Nelson, Josslyn Lohmann, Troy Clemenson, Edward Winters, Morgan Proctor, Delaney Mellgren, Carley Howard and Lincoln Toombs — gathers at the Covered Bridge Park in Zumbrota, Minnesota. The Zumbrota Mazeppa FFA Chapter started as two separate chapters: Zumbrota, which chartered their chapter in 1955, and Mazeppa, chartered in 1958.

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The Zumbrota Mazeppa FFA members — Sydney Hahn (from left); Josslyn Lohmann; Troy Clemenson in the cow costume; Luke Mulholland; Delaney Mellgren in the horse costume; and Grant Clemenson in the pig costume — hang out on the FFA float during the 2025 Covered Bridge Days parade in Zumbrota, Minnesota. Members hand out candy during the parade. The float equipment was donated and driven by Brian Clemenson of Clemenson Farms.

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Posted Saturday, November 22, 2025 12:00 am

48 members
Zumbrota, Minnesota
Goodhue County

Tell us about your chapter. The Zumbrota Mazeppa FFA Chapter is located in southeastern Minnesota, just 20 minutes north of Rochester. We have about 50 members from grades seven to 12. Members in our chapter compete in a variety of contests each year, ranging from general livestock and meats to parliamentary procedure and prepared public speaking.

How does your chapter volunteer in the community throughout the year? Our chapter does many things to be out and about in our community. In the fall, we host a farm animal petting zoo for Zumbrota’s Annual Covered Bridge Festival; we participate in the parade for that event as well. We have a section of highway right outside of Zumbrota that we make sure is cleaned up twice a year. In the spring, we visit the residents of the local care center. We bring some farm animal babies with us to share with them and share our FFA stories with them, too. In the wintertime, our chapter does a service project, making tie blankets to donate to the Ronald McDonald House.

What fundraisers does your chapter do throughout the year? Which is the most successful? Each year our chapter sells fruit, meats, cheese and mixed nuts, along with holiday meat and cheese boxes from a local farmer who has a creamery on their farm. Most recently, we have begun selling strawberries in the spring, and they have become a huge hit. But, when it comes down to it, our fruit sales in the fall are what bring in the most revenue to our chapter. This enables us to provide free events for our members. We never want the cost of a trip to be the reason a member cannot attend.

What are the biggest events of the year? Our biggest event each year would have to be FFA week. We host various events throughout the week to get our entire school community involved. We do things like dress up days, door decorating, ag olympics, boots for roots, primary coloring contest, Mazeppa elementary ag olympics and, of course, celebrating our great staff and teachers here with a tasty homemade breakfast.

What is unique about your chapter? A unique thing about our chapter is that we have many members who serve on different levels of FFA. At times, we’ve had members serve in all capacities in one school year with a state officer and region officer from our chapter. That is a big motivator for our members as they get to see someone from their home chapter serving in those bigger leadership roles; they too could someday be in that position of leadership for the FFA if they truly want it.

When was your chapter founded and how has it evolved? While we know the dates of when each city had its own FFA chapter founded, we don’t currently know when the two chapters combined. Zumbrota chartered its chapter in 1955 and Mazeppa in 1958. Based on some research, the Zumbrota Mazeppa FFA came into existence when the two schools merged in 1987.