~guest post by MRS

Evidently this week is National FFA Week. I wish I had some fun stories to tell about my time in FFA and the things I learned and benefited from while involved in FFA activities, but I don’t.

When I was in high school, FFA was the largest “social club” at my school. And honestly, I thought that was all it was – just another club to join, kind of like the Spanish/French club, SADD, the yearbook club, etc. I thought that it was a club for kids who grew up on a farm to get together and hang out, wear their tight Wranglers with their blue corduroy jackets, sell fruit in the fall and sponsor the Sadie Hawkins Dance. I honestly knew nothing else about what they did. And I’m sure that the tight Wranglers were just a fashion statement made by some of the students, and not a prerequisite for joining FFA.

Who have you told about your FFA experience?

However, HandyMan was very involved in FFA while in high school. When I reminded him that this week is National FFA Week, he reminisced about some of his experiences in FFA as a teenager. He said that one of the ways his FFA chapter honored this week was to have “spirit days”. One day would be “Cowboy” day and all the FFA members would dress up as cowboys/girls. There were other themed days, but his favorite day during that week was always “Drive you Farm Equipment to School” day. He said some FFA members would drive tractors, combines, semis and other farm equipment to school. HandyMan drove the farm truck with the livestock trailer to school. It seems like a simple, fun thing for the farm kids to do, but I imagine they were able to educate a lot of their classmates and teachers by driving their farm equipment to school. As I can attest, just because a person grows up in a farming community, it doesn’t mean they actually know anything about farming!

I also asked HandyMan more about what he did and learned in FFA, because FFA is much more than just the “social club” I had thought it was. HandyMan talked about his SAE or Supervised Agricultural Experience. His SAE consisted of raising hogs, baling straw for local farmers and mowing the grass at his church. He learned about managing a business, caring for farm animals and hard work. He was also an officer in his FFA chapter and was able to attend the National FFA Convention when it was in Kansas City, MO. HandyMan also talked about competing in livestock and soil judging as part of his FFA experience. He said that as a result of those competitions and experiences, he became much more comfortable with public speaking. It’s too bad I didn’t have that experience; maybe then I wouldn’t have had to take speech twice in college! And I hope Blue follows in his father’s footsteps as an FFA member.

I can honestly say that while I was in high school, I never knew any of these FFA activities even existed. It’s hard to believe that, in a small high school where FFA was the most popular student organization and most kids grew up in farming families that I didn’t know more about FFA in particular and agriculture in general, but I didn’t.

Don’t just make a fashion statement in those blue corduroy jackets, talk about FFA. Tell us why you’re a part of FFA, what you’re learning and how it applies to “real life” and then talk about agriculture. If I can grow up surrounded by cornfields, cow pastures and hog farms and know almost nothing about farming, then anyone can. Educate us!