National Convention Video

The National FFA Convention took place last week in Indianapolis.  Many South Dakota teams did very well in the competitions including Miller in Ag Communications and Highmore in Livestock Evaluation and Parliamentary Procedure.  Linked below is an incredible speech by Jason Brown, who played in the NFL and gave up his football career at the age of 27 to become a farmer.  I would encourage you to watch his speech and testimony to God's work in his life:

https://pulse.ffa.org/index.php/2016/10/21/keynote-jason-brown-believes-in-the-future-of-agriculture/

Landscaping Class

Our landscaping class has been busy this fall trimming trees on campus.

Today we were blessed to have Kent and Adam from the NRCS in Miller come and help us do soil sampling on the football field

The goal of our soil sampling is to improve our fertility and treatment of the field to provide a better playing surface.

 The soil samples will be sent to a lab in Sioux Falls where it will be analyzed and the results as well as recommendations will be sent back to us.  

 We have a great community in Miller who are willing to help us out with projects like this.  Thanks for everyone who has been willing to help out!

Here comes fall

 Today we went to range judging school in Wessington.  The students did very well and are coming along on their range skills.

 The school is set up to where we go through 2 plant lines and 2 sites in the morning.  Then we review those in the afternoon with help from the NRCS.

 The Agri-business class toured our neighbors' club calves last week.  Club calves are bid on by potential buyers from the pasture and then the top ones go on to become show cattle.  

 Fall also means tarping silage piles for our neighbors, which you can see in the next 2 pictures.

 Below are a couple of leftover pictures from the state fair.  Our Leadership class created a display that was shown in the FFA building.

September Stroll

 Last week members of our FFA chapter spent many hours at the State Fair.  This is an enjoyable yet exhausting experience as we entered competitions and served in various capacities.

 The above pictures show most of the crew who went to help at the Pork Producer's booth and the redesigned  FFA Ag Adventure area.

 Our crew does an excellent job helping with the Pork Producers and they are always anxious to get our students back for the next year.  I'm impressed with the work ethic and maturity of our students in a face-paced concession stand at the State Fair.

 Our Leadership class created a chapter display which we entered in a contest.  The display took 6th place overall and the students did a wonderful job designing and creating a display to promote our chapter and the FFA theme for this year which is "Transform: purpose to action"

 Another new thing this year was competing in the Farmer's Union Safety Quiz Bowl.  Our team did well and lost a heart breaker in tie breaker to McCook Central.  They finished in third place.  Congratulations to our students for a job well done!

 The quiz bowl was on the Freedom Stage in front of many more people than the students were used to seeing.

 The FFA redesigned their approach this year and created interactive displays instead of the traditional petting zoo.  Here the students are helping at the chicken station.

Our landscaping class has been hard at work trimming trees and they are developing a good eye for shape and beauty.  We have plenty of work on and off campus to keep us busy for a while.  Thanks for tuning in!

Time to roll again!

 Hello students, parents and friends-We are rolling along on another exciting school year!  This is the 4th year of our school's Agricultural Education and FFA program and every year is uniquely different in the students we have and opportunities God brings our way.

Above is a picture of students from the landscaping class helping get the football field ready for the opening game last week.  Nice glasses!

 As usual, we start off with range science in Exploring SD Ag.  This is a great way to engage students in God's wonderful creation and learn about the biodiversity found on the prairie ecosystems.

 Students participate in a variety of group projects and learn how to work with others.

 The Leadership class is building an FFA display (see below pictures) for the State Fair.  Stop into the FFA buildings to check out the display and more!

 The students came up with a design and will be putting the finishing touches on this week.

 Our chapter was awarded a grant from Farm Credit Services last year to purchase laptop computers for our classroom.  God has blessed us with many organizations and individuals coming alongside of us to support our chapter.  A huge thank you to all who helped and to God alone be the glory!

End of the Year Part 2

 We celebrated our year in FFA with a banquet on May 2nd.  It was a blessing to be able to reflect back on all that God has done in the lives of our students!

 The students were able to pose for pictures around the fire-pit area we have been working on this spring.

 Our banquet was attended by 50 students, parents and guests.  Included in those guests were 2 families of whom we gave honorary membership to our chapter.  Brad Ufen is an SBA alumnus and has helped with our range judging and given us crushed rock for our fire-pit project.

 We also honored the family of the late Wayne Fawcett who was a strong supporter of our chapter.  The Fawcett family lives just over a mile away and are always willing to lend a hand with whatever we need.

Brent Thiel from Lindskov-Thiel Ranch was our speaker and he challenged all of us to pursue integrity in our business relationships as well as our relationship with God.  Below is a picture of our speaker addressing the students.

 A huge thanks to my wife for creating beautiful table decorations and to our neighbor for catering the delicious food!

 We are starting to get siblings in our chapter now as we have finished our 3rd year.  Below is a picture of a sister holding the gavel her brother made in his first year of FFA.  Thank you to all of our families for your support!

The End of the Year Part 1

 There are no excuses for late work in a teacher's mind so I won't even begin to try to explain why we have not updated the blog since State Convention.  However, it is the end of the school year which means it's time to work outside and wrap up projects!

 The students did a great job finishing the fire pit project.  It turned out beautiful and the track students tested it out a couple of nights ago.  It works great!

 Here is the Agri-business class which came up with the grant idea and helped with the project.

 Spring also means tree planting time.  The junior high and landscaping classes planted 160 seedlings around campus.  We plant as many trees as we can in 5 gallon buckets with the bottoms cut out of them (we are always running out of 5 gallon buckets).  This helps prevent against the trees getting run over by the lawn mower and helps contain moisture.

 Here is the junior high group after a successful day of planting!

 The junior high class also did a water infiltration lab where we tested the infiltration rate on 4 different types of land use areas-seasonally grazed pasture, no-till corn field, football field, and a native grassland area.

 Our landscaping class had a very hard final exam-we went to the golf course to learn about the maintenance of a golf course and then had to play a couple holes to test their skill.  We had a great time there and appreciate the Miller Country Club for hosting us.

Stay tuned for pictures from our banquet and other odds and ends that I missed here.  Thanks!