Kimball FFA has one of the best Web sites in the state’s organization. It is quite possible they have one of the best in the nation, that is according to the site’s creator and FFA advisor Shawn Meyer. The Web page, www.kimballffa.com, and links were created by Kimball FFA’s current president Chris Sheehan. He said that he has spent about 500-600 hours working on the site. “I work on the site about an hour or an hour-and-a-half everyday,” Sheehan said. Most of the work is done from Sheehan’s home on his laptop computer. He said he creates individual documents to post up on the site. Teaching himself The high school junior began working on the Web site because he thought that it could be done better. “[The old site] wasn’t very organized. I wanted to do a different one and make it better.” Prior to this experience, Sheehan didn’t have any skills in creating Web pages. He taught himself everything he knows through trial and error. “I found a picture of a maze and I had it repeat itself [to make the home page’s background].” The home page also displays the FFA mission, explains the emblem, has a guest book and links to other pages. The links include officers, members, Supervised Agriculture Experiences (SAEs), news, alumni, a calendar and pictures. “My favorite is the officers and members link,” Sheehan said. This link lists the name of all officers and shows a survey completed by each student. It gives visitors a feel for each officer, and tells their likes, interests and involvement in FFA. Sheehan said that many students look at and use the site, often during school hours. While students are looking at the site, Sheehan asks them their opinions and incorporates these into the pages. One of the requests included posting pictures. Currently, there are links to photos from the organization officer retreat. Sheehan also creates his site to be user friendly while adding a special flair. “There are blue buttons on the site, when you click on them, they turn gold.” Sheehan also plans on putting video on the home page. “Right now I am learning HTML and Flash [which would allow me to put up video].” Designing his interest into something more Because of the success of the Kimball site, others have asked Sheehan to create Web sites. Sheehan has complied with requests and organized his own business “Web Designs” in the process. For his services, Sheehan charges a mere $100 for smaller Web pages and $125 for something larger. “After I talked to people, they said, ‘you should charge more,’” Sheehan said. Sheehan will use this business as one of his FFA projects. He will also use his FFA Web site to compete in the agriculture communications division. This category includes students who work at radio stations or write for publications. “I have to conduct an interview at the region level,” Sheehan said. He is confident the project will go well and advance to state, since the category has few competitors. “I don’t have a whole lot of people to worry about,” Sheehan said. At the state level, one or two projects are chosen to advance to the national competition. Sheehan plans on bringing his project here, which would be next fall at the end of October. “I am pretty confident in it (the Web site advancing to nations).” For now, Sheehan plans to keep updating and creating the site. “There is always something I am changing or making different,” Sheehan said.
