Asotin FFA: It’s more than ag

The Future Farmers of America ag shop in Asotin is a busy hub of activity.

Students wearing work clothes shape metal with welding equipment. The sound of hammering echoes in the shop. Students use 3D printers and creating electrical components for light-up signs. Everyone is doing something under the eye of Glen Landrus, FFA chapter adviser and agriculture teacher.

Next to the shop is the classroom, the walls of which are lined with awards, banners and trophies that sit on the counters of the room with stacks of award plaques. Beside the building is the Asotin FFA greenhouse, where flowers and veggies are growing and waiting to be sold.

The work doesn’t stop in the classroom. There’s extracurricular work with the FFA chapter — both at home and at the school with meetings — as well as fundraising, showing at fairs and competitions.

In the classroom, students get an introduction to FFA, but most of the students have some experience in agriculture. Asotin FFA chapter President Berklie Sheppard, a junior, said that in the freshman animal science class some people will go into the class with little experience except having a family pet and some of those students continue with the program.

There’s more to agriculture than livestock and farming — Sheppard said there’s only one class that involves livestock. Classes include subjects like animal science, horticulture, agricultural mechanics and the greenhouse class.

“Just everything that goes with agriculture,” said FFA Secretary Stone Ausman, junior. “It’s a wide variety.”

Students get 55 minutes a day five days a week to learn from Landrus, then they take those skills and implement them into their studies or their FFA projects. In the ag shop, students start with basic skills and work their way up. The equipment comes from industry donations and school levy funds. Landrus said the program can be expensive; the table that’s used to cut metal cost $30,000.

“That’s why a lot of schools cut (the program),” Landrus said.

Skills for the greenhouse are taught sophomore year. At the greenhouse, Asotin FFA sells flowers that they plant and grow themselves. They also sell vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers. Each student has an assigned task of planting, filling pots with soil and watering.

“This was my favorite class we had because it never got boring,” said junior Abby Ausman.

Even if the students aren’t planning agricultural careers, FFA photographer Ellie Smith and Abby Ausman note the life skills the classes provide like welding, planting flowers or learning to cook. In animal science the students learned about different kinds of meat, including the cost and how to cook it.

“Just the little life lessons you learn with this class, which I really like and it’s all hands-on,” Abby Ausman said.

The agriculture classes at Asotin are part of the culture and history of the school.

“For a lot of people ag isn’t just a class it’s what they do,” Abby Ausman said.

There’s a generational aspect to the ag classes too. Abby Ausman said her dad took agriculture classes at the high school.

“They love the ag classes here, everyone tries to get into them,” Smith said.

After some foundational skills are established in the classes many students move on to be a part of FFA. Senior Josie Carpenter has been with the FFA program since her freshman year. She began with animal sciences and after taking a unit on the conduct of chapter meetings in FFA she decided to join. Now Carpenter is doing agriculture sales, parliamentary procedure and also shows swine for market and livestock.

Like many students in FFA, Carpenter comes in with an agriculture background — her family raises beef and her uncle is a swine farmer.

“So that definitely pushed me in an agricultural direction,” Carpenter said. “But I think the way that Mr. Landrus sets up his classes, the way he’s just able to really keep the students interested in grasping each and every concept.”

The students have high praise for Landrus as a teacher and FFA adviser who helps with their competitions, even if you have to meet high standards. Stone Ausman said that Landrus is also well-known when they compete even at the national level, and he works hard for his students.

Under Landrus’ direction, Carpenter learned more about agriculture outside of her pig raising. She grew in her skills with technology, speech, sales and SolidWorks, which is a design software used to create products like machine parts. Using that knowledge, Carpenter is hoping to become a doctor of veterinary medicine, specializing in large animals at the University of Idaho.

“I think that really allowed for me to get more of a wider range of what agriculture really is,” Carpenter said. “That’s, I think, what’s kept me sticking in this. There’s so much merit in agriculture because it’s more than just farming.”

As part of the FFA, students are involved in the Asotin County Fair, where they enter flowers and metal art as well as having a livestock judging competition.

FFA has many fundraising events that are popular in the community. Flowers of different colors are planted into bowl-shaped baskets with many people purchasing flowers every year.

“It’s the same people that come in every year,” Smith said. “I know my grandma has gotten a bowl, a hanging basket, (since) forever.”

Another popular fundraiser is the enchilada sales, which sells about 1,400 a year. It takes a full day to make the enchiladas.

Those fundraisers pay for FFA’s trips to competitions. The competition takes place starting in the spring and then nationals in the fall. The competitions are divided into subdistricts, districts, state and then national. If someone places in the top spots then they move on to the next round until nationals.

“It’s definitely a challenge, especially with how competitive agriculture is around here,” Carpenter said. “Everyone’s drive to succeed is definitely very inspiring and it creates for a very challenging competition. But I think that’s the best aspect of it.”

Vice President Peter Eggleston, a senior, said the parliamentary procedure is one of the hardest categories to compete in. Part of it is a test, there’s memorization and questions that contestants have to answer.

“It’s highly competitive in our area,” Eggleston said. “Then once you get to the national level, it’s one of the most well-known events and so therefore highly competitive.”

Carpenter competed at the state and national level in Indianapolis for public speaking on brucellosis, a cattle disease.

“These competitions are the best experiences that I’ve had personally in FFA,” Carpenter said. “It’s a lot of leaning on each other and learning how to work together, especially being so far away from home, you’re away from your support system. So we’ve been able to create our own support system within our little teams and definitely as a chapter as a whole. It’s more like a family scenario than it is just an extracurricular.”

That connection will make it hard for Carpenter to leave when she graduates.

“I’m definitely going to reminisce on the memories that I’ve made the last four years,” she said.

Brewster may be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.