The Finish Line!

 As we head into our last month of the school year, we are enjoying the beautiful spring weather we have been blessed with!  Our classes have been planting trees and working on landscaping projects on campus the last couple of weeks since the convention.

The end of the school year is always busy for the students and our class times will be limited as the students compete in track meets, rodeo, and help with bull sales.  We are finishing up our leadership study on Shackleton this week with a paper examining Shackleton's legacy of leadership compared to principles we find in the Bible on life and leadership.
We have also started a final research project where student's are researching and presenting on different topics in livestock and landscaping.  The topics include: Animal Handling Facilities, Genetics, Grass-fed versus Grain-fed cattle, Shelter Belts, Mineral and Feed Supplements, Implanting, Artificial Insemination, and a Landscape Design for a house at SBA.
May 5th (Monday) we are planning a field trip to Dakota Lakes Research Farm which is operated by Dr. Dwayne Beck from SDSU who has been a pioneer of no-till farming.  I will plan on meeting West River students at the farm (17 miles east of Pierre on Highway 34) at 10:30 am, otherwise we will leave from school at 9:15 that morning.  Classes will be switched around that day so students should not miss much from their other classes.    
There will be FFA awards given out at Awards Night, so please join us in celebrating our year on May 8th!