For the second time in four years, the Blanchester FFA has been named the No. 1 chapter in the nation.

The FFA won the national honor with its Models of Innovation in Community Development program, said Dan Shell, co-advisor of the Blanchester chapter with Kevin Abt, a graduate of Blanchester High School.

The announcement was made late Thursday afternoon on stage at the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind., with more than 48,000 people in attendance from across the nation.

In 2003, the Blanchester FFA was named the No. 1 chapter for its Models of Innovation in Student Development.

Reached by phone Thursday night at the Buckeye Party being held at the convention and with background noise of celebrating students, Shell praised his students and co-advisor Kevin Abt.

“It was their day-to-day hard work and what they do on a daily basis activity-wise that makes these things happen. It puts the plan into action and then carrying out the plans,” Shell said.

“Mr. Abt and I are just elated that we have such good kids to work with and kids that are movitated about developing themselves, their school and the community. They put the hard work into it and they are very deserving of what they’ve accomplished. And I know they share the pride of winning this with the entire school and the community.”

Shell said to make the community accomplishments work, it has to be a total FFA effort and a total school effort.

“It’s more than just winning the award. Kevin and I both have said that what we’re doing is trying to instill community pride and a sense of what community means to these kids. That is what the activities kind of revolve around. I hope that we have done that. If we can do that, we just build kids to come back and make the community stronger.”

In the national competition, the students told about their community accomplishments with the Glen Thompson Food Drive where the FFA coordinates the collection of food in all schools in the Blanchester Local School District; holds Cardboard City at the high school, raising $1,600 for the Clinton County Homeless Shelter last year; and coordinating fall homecoming activities for the high school.

Also attending the convention were Supt. Brian R. Ruckel and school board members Jack Fisher and Joe Falgner.

Thursday night, Fisher praised the students, Shell and Abt for their accomplishments and seeing “those young people perform (at the convention), to see them speak and conduct their meeting.”

“It’s very uplifting and reassuring to see what is happening with our young people. We couldn’t have been more proud for what our young people have achieved.”

This year, the Blanchester FFA Chapter has 148 members, the largest class since the chapter was established at Blanchester High School.

Shell is in his 17th year as FFA advisor and Abt is in his fourth year as co-advisor.

When Shell interviewed for the job as FFA advisor at Blanchester in 1990, 28 students were enrolled in the program.

“They told me I had one year to get it up to where it was fully-funded with enough students to keep the program. As the years progressed, we had enough students to have two teachers.”

Shell praised Abt in his work. “He is the wonderful teacher as a teaching team to teach with. He was one of my students at Blanchester. He’s come back to teach with me and there’s nobody in the world that I would rather teach with. He’s a wonderful educator and a great teaching partner. He is tust an absolutely wonderful person to be around.