March 20, 2024
Mount Dora Student Afrifa Amoah Mensah Star of Florida Finalist for Agricultural Placement
By Kyle Coppola
Mount Dora Student Afrifa Amoah Mensah Star of Florida Finalist for Agricultural Placement
This is big news for Mount Dora High school as Afrifah Amoah Mensah has been selected as one of 25 students as finalists in the highly coveted “Stars of Florida” award program, the highest competitive recognition for FFA members and their Supervised Agricultural Experience program in seven categories. Afrifah is one of four Agricultural Placement finalists in the state!
Each candidate will be interviewed by a team of FFA, indsutry and Agriculture Education representatives to determine the winner in each area. Each finalist, their family and agriculture instructors will be recognized at the Fourth General Session of the 96th Florida FFA Convention to be held at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando.
(Photo Credit – Joe Ott Photography “Fan Zone”)
Afrifa Amoah-Mensah is a name that we have covered a lot this season. Amoah-Mensah was a standout football player at Mount Dora High. He played wide receiver and was one of the Team Captains this season. He tallied 12 receptions for 129 yards including a touchdown. Amoah-Mensah was also on the bowling team this season and is currently competing in Track & Field. He is one of the favorites in Class 2A in the Triple Jump.
Afrifa currently has many college football offers including Manchester University, Massachusetts Maritime, Concordia Chicago, Bluffton University, Husson University, Culver-Stockton College and Ohio Northern University. While he remains uncommitted at this time he maaintains a 4.2 GPA and he is a student that any College or University would be happy to have.
(Photo Credit – Lake County Schools)
This is a high honor and we are very happy to see his success. In a social media post, Michelle Bladek stated “I met Afrifah on Monday. Brilliant young man!! I knew the second I met him that he was goign to have a lifelong journey in FFA. Way to go! Way to represent Lake County!” said Bladek. Congratulations to Afrifah and we look forward to seeing what this young man is capable of in the future.
Kyle Coppola was born in Newton, Massachusetts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Communications from Curry College in 2016. After traveling to Florida on a family vacation, he decided he could not get enough of the warm weather and made the move from snowy Massachusetts to central Florida 8 years ago.
For the last decade Kyle has gained valuable experience in social media content creation, marketing and sales, writing, video production, sports announcing and even broadcasting for local radio stations, such as FM 102.9 in The Villages and FM 91.5 in Massachusetts. Every year he volunteers at The Villages Charter High School as a play-by-play sports announcer for the football games as well as a public address announcer for the basketball games, including the annual Battle at The Villages Tournament.
Outside the office Kyle is a husband and father to two beautiful girls along with their cat. In his spare time he likes to spend time with his family, travel, play golf and swim. He is also a huge sports junkie and even bigger motorsports fan and loves to attend racing events when he can.
