By Joanne Lee –
The blue corduroy jackets and bright yellow emblems of the Future Farmers of America are familiar sights throughout rural Colorado. To some they signify that the wearer is a farmer, but that’s only part of what the jacket represents.
Yes, the wearers of blue jackets are interested in agribusiness and the economics of agribusiness, but they are being taught more than that. They are young men and women who are the pride of their communities, learning responsibility, accountability, preparedness, organizational skills, respect, public speaking, leadership and more.
Hundreds of thousands of members strong, the National Future Farmers of America Organization has provided a network for high school students across the nation since its beginning in 1928 in Kansas. Today, spread throughout all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the National FFA Organization supports ag student education and builds on a belief in the importance of agriculture. It does this through the extracurricular organization that FFA is and through the curricular ag classes offered by the schools.
The combination of classes and extracurricular activities is part of the three-circle model of agricultural education. This model overlaps instruction, a supervised agricultural experience and student leadership organizations. The Colorado FFA Foundation has helped FFA serve thousands of students through this model, and it is working to expand that support.
Kenton Ochsner is excited about what is ahead. Involved in FFA since his sophomore year in high school and now FFA state advisor with the Colorado Community College System, Ochsner followed his older brother into the organization, which later became his career.
“My dad was in FFA also,” Ochsner said. “I went to college for two years and became a state officer, and that really spurred my interest in events like the [National Western] stock show. I realized how little people really know about agriculture, and that is the reason I became an ag teacher: to educate people about it. I taught agriculture in Colorado for nine years and for the past nine years, my job has been to manage the state officers who are elected each year and to manage state FFA events.”
One way individuals can participate in the fundraising is to make a gift toward the project and join the Blue Jacket Society. If you are a society member you get the opportunity to put your FFA jacket in a shadowbox and it will hang in the new center. Here is a link: http://www.coloradoffafoundation.org.
It is these kinds of students that Executive Director Don Thorn is passionate about reaching. To do that, the program needs strong instructors so that ag teachers are well-prepared to teach. One way to do that is with a comprehensive teaching model at Colorado State University that includes theory and hands-on experiences, something that is difficult with the current facilities. So, in conjunction with Ochsner and Michael Womochil of the CCCS, Thorn and the CFFA Foundation are working toward a new Center for Agricultural Education at CSU in Fort Collins.
“In Colorado there are right at 100 high schools that offer agricultural education classes to students,” Thorn said. “That represents about 6,500 students in this state. If the school offers agricultural education then in most cases they also offer the cocurricular student leadership organization of FFA. This makes our delivery of education robust. It also makes us unique.”
The addition of the center will blend traditional FFA instruction and experience into a real-life classroom setting for ag students. “The building components are intended to serve as the model agricultural education program and give our budding educators a very realistic place to practice their instruction before their student teaching experience,” said Thorn.
Colorado State University Agricultural Education student Elisa Sagehorn teaches at Windsor High School, May 17, 2012.
Building such a facility does not come cheap; however, fundraising for the structure’s $3 million price tag is successful in part thanks to Thorn and his board members’ dedication to the project. On February 14, it was announced that CoBank, American AgCredit of Greeley, Farm Credit of Southern Colorado in Colorado Springs and Premier Farm Credit of Sterling are donating more than $1 million toward the center’s construction.
Designed with more than 18,000 square feet of learning space, the center will house customized laboratory, technology, teaching and office spaces. In addition, it will include special exhibit space for the Colorado Agriculture Hall of Fame, a program of the CFFA Foundation.
Sadie Sayler, a former blue coat-clad member of the National FFA Organization, is the exuberant second-year agriculture teacher at a small high school in the southeast corner of Colorado. A CSU graduate, Sayler bubbled with enthusiasm at this year’s National Western Stock Show and Rodeo in Denver. “My experience as an ag teacher has been awesome,” Sayler said. “The training I got at CSU was amazing. It gave me everything I needed to be able to come out and hit the ground running to make sure that I have an amazing FFA chapter and to be able to propel my students forward.”
Like so many former members, Sayler spent much of her high school experience involved in FFA as an officer and chapter president.
CSU juniors and future ag educators Clay Miller and Shannon Baylie have both been involved with agriculture in education from a young age. “My mom was a past FFA advisor so I was kind of expected to be in FFA,” Baylie said. “I started my FFA experience my freshman year of high school in 2005.”
Like Baylie, Miller started his formal FFA training as a freshman in high school. “I wasn’t really sure what FFA was until I got involved, and then I really fell in love with it. Shannon and I are both state FFA officers since last year, and we plan to continue our passion with FFA in working with youth into the future.”
Graduates of the same program as Sayler, Miller and Baylie will bring a wealth of knowledge to their future classrooms.
“What I hear about the new building at CSU is that it will have a lot of hands-on things that we lacked when I went through the program,” Sayler said. “I learned the concepts that go along with those hands-on things, but with the new building, future graduates will learn concepts and the hands-on training that is so vital to teaching our future generations.”
Womochil, program director for agriculture and natural resources for the CCCS, agrees. “Kenton [Ochsner] and I both work with continuing education for teachers in the field, and the new building will most definitely bring opportunity for those experiences,” he said.
“One of the challenges we’ve had in the past was where to meet with teachers,” he continued. “Of course, we could always get a conference room in a hotel, but there we could only do so much. Now we can get to the hands-on skills: the true representation of what needs to happen in an ag class and ag programs in the high schools. It will be a huge benefit.”
The primary focus will be to serve the teachers of Colorado but the building could serve as a distance lab that could possibly help serve teachers from around our region.
“We are always looking for opportunities to collaborate with other states and if the opportunity arises, this facility will be the opportune place for it,” Womochil added.
“Any time a university offers additional training facilities, it attracts people. I believe this will be an added attraction for students to come to CSU,” Womochil said. “I further believe the added student population will increase teaching positions and staff members.”
The new facility will sit on the research farm, and across the road to the south is the Agronomy Research Center. The facility will try to duplicate as well as show the potential for what a high school program would look like. As CSU trains instructors, they will be learning in the type of environment that they will teach in, in the future.
From initial thoughts to present construction, project members have invested almost two years into the growth of the building and its concepts. “I think it has been a fairly quick process,” Womochil said. “Don Thorn has really worked hard to secure funding. Another reason the process has gone fast is that there are a number of people out there who know what we are trying to do and who really believe in an ag education.
“It’s a unique project because we are all raising funds and constructing a building that will educate and train future generations of high school and community college agriculture instructors.”
Those new instructors will be ready to teach new members of Future Farmers of America, keeping the legacy of the blue jacket moving forward.
Former high school English and art teacher JoAnne Lee now spends her days skiing and working on the slopes in northern New Mexico. Her spare time includes capturing photos and writing about the interesting people and places she visits.
Photo Caption: Colorado FFA members visit with Laura Spencer, host at “Good Morning America,” while touring New York City.