Archives for September 2022

As part of my new job with the school district, I get to see all aspects of our Career and Technical education departments. One of the things that I am looking forward to is learning about all of the Career and Technical Student Organizations that our county offers. I got started in CTE through my work with TSA, the Technology Students Association. While I know TSA backward and forwards, I know very little about the others, HOSA, FFA, FCCLA, SkillsUSA, etc.

Imagine how excited I was to be able to get to see many of our FFA students raise animals for the competition and auction at the county fair. The first ‘official’ event of the fair season is the steer weigh-in at the beginning of August and I went out to get some photographs and video. I had a blast! To see these kiddos manhandle these huge steers is impressive. On this day, the steers got vaccinated, had a DNA sample taken, and weighed. I had never seen the beginning process, so this was all fascinating to me. These kids put in a lot of work to raise, feed, groom, show and sell their animals. It was really cool to be able to talk to some of these kids about their animals and see how excited and knowledgeable they were about the process. I can’t wait to follow them until the fair in January. If you have a local fair that showcases local students, please go and support them. They are the future of farming in America.