The Marshall County FFA

On Wednesday evening, I attended the Marshall County FFA Ham, Bacon and Egg Sale at John Marshall High School. For the second consecutive year, I was able to purchase the Reserve Grand Champion Bacon, which I then donated back to the FFA Scholarship Fund.  This marked the fifth FFA event I have attended over the past two years, and with each event I am even more impressed with the young men and women I have had the pleasure of meeting.

Let me take a minute to give you some insight into why I am so impressed with the FFA.  Shortly after I entered the school building and began looking over the 100-plus items up for auction, I was approached by John Horner.  John had the Reserve Grand Champion Bacon that I had purchased at last year’s event.  He greeted me with “Hello, Mr. Artimez.  I appreciate your coming.  I’m John Horner; you bought my bacon last year.  I just wanted to say thanks again.”  He looked me straight in the eye, firmly shook my hand, and walked away.  Next came Jack “JJ” Cain, the son of the principal at Cameron High School.  “Hello, Mr. Artimez.  Thanks for coming.  I have the Reserve Grand Champion Ham this year.  Hope you can bid on it.”  Another firm handshake.

I walked from the display area and into the auditorium where the auction was going to take place.  After I sat down, I was approached by several other FFA members, most of whom called me by name.  Each of them thanked me for being there, told me of the items they had up for auction, and asked if they could get anything for me while we waited for the auction to begin.  One by one, the young men and women walked proudly across the stage, holding the items they had up for auction.  Local businesses and their owners, all eager to support the FFA, snatched up item after item.  Senate candidate Lisa Zukoff purchased the Grand Champion Ham.  Missy Knight of Knight’s Farm Supply bought several items, as did Carl Boso from Boso & Son Towing; John Hart of J&R Excavating and Mike Merinar, President of the Marshall County Farm Bureau.  The Reserve Grand Champion Bacon I purchased was the work of Hunter Aston, whose father owns the Pleasant Valley Store.  Hunter shook my hand and expressed his sincere gratitude, as did his father and grandfather as well.

The FFA is in the business of preparing our young men and women for life in the real world.  Modern farming is a business, and FFA is preparing its students to run a business.  They maintain very detailed logs about their particular projects.  They maintain notebooks that include a journal of their daily activities, itemized income and expense reports, a detailed business plan and profit/loss statements for each project.  Students from the Cameron FFA have set state records for the number of awards received, and several students recently achieved national recognition for their work.

Beyond that, kids who participate in the FFA are quite obviously taught the right values:  respect, courtesy, hard work.  In a society where we too often see our young people with their pants hanging halfway down their rear ends, hats on sideways with their heads buried in their cellphones, it is encouraging to know that in Marshall County, some of our children are still being taught about professionalism and respect.  Kudos to John Lockhart, Hattie DeBolt and all of the children, parents, businesses and individuals that support the FFA.