With the new school year kicking off, students returned back to their classes and enrolled in extracurricular clubs.
One of those clubs is the Future Farmers of America (FFA) and Yelm High School now has the largest chapter in the nation. Last year, the chapter had a total of 1,280 students involved in it, almost 85% of Yelm High School’s 1,515 enrolled students. Staff at the high school expects that number to be about the same come December when the FFA enrollment period ends.
Yelm High School teachers Dusti Nash and Matthew Mounts talked with the Nisqually Valley News over the phone to explain why that was a big deal.
“The national FFA organization is the largest youth-led organization in the world. Membership is currently at 850,823 students and the number of chapters is 8,995,” Mounts said.
Mounts said Yelm High School has seven FFA advisers on staff. They offer students a variety of programs that go outside of traditional farming but are still focused on agriculture.
“We integrate our curriculum that we teach here in class with sciences, so every freshman is in one of our courses and a large percentage of the sophomores are too,” Mounts said. “We teach egg chemistry, biology. We even have an applied physics course we offer among other electives.”
Those electives include greenhouse work, floral design, natural resource studies, small engine mechanics, veterinary science and even biotechnologies.
“A huge portion of our students aren’t from a farming background, so for us and our FFA chapter in particular, we try really hard to focus on developing those leadership and current skills that will help them in the future,” Nash said. “(We look at things) through the lens of agriculture but we’re focusing on them gaining some of those skills that they need for the rest of their lives.”
Kids are joining the chapter not just because they’re interested in agriculture but because they want to cultivate other skills they can use after they graduate. Mounts mentioned students are also encouraged to volunteer outside of their classes and are offered both career and leadership development opportunities.
Students are encouraged to participate in farming and ranching if they can and to compete in local fairs, if possible, through supervised agricultural experiences (SAE). Students also compete with their SAE projects against students in other FFA chapters.
“We had a national winner six years ago in their SAE area. They were taking raw wool and spinning it into yarn and turning it into custom colors, doing the whole process,” Mounts said. “She was selling a ton of it to the point where when she applied and showed her record books and everything she was doing. She ended up being the winner at the national level.”
Nash stated Yelm’s chapter has developed the reputation where students motivate and push each other to do better, which she said helps encourage students to join the program.
“We’ve been fairly successful at the national level and a lot of kids are coming in because we’ve built that culture in Yelm,” Nash said. “They come in already knowing they want to be a part of FFA because they’ve seen other people be successful because of their involvement.”
Aside from doing FFA work for class and their own development, the students are also involved in community service projects.
“We actually have 17 raised gardens here at the school and the kids plant and tend and harvest the vegetables which we donate to a number of different community groups and even have just random giveaway days and donate it all back to the community,” Mounts said.
Yelm High School senior Illey Wall said she has been involved with FFA since she was a freshman. Wall initially became interested in FFA after her older sister went through the program.
“I’ve learned things in every single, different department of agriculture. One of my favorites was floral,” Wall said. “I’ve been on the team for two years now and I got seventh place in state last year for the flowers I grew.”
No matter the area though, Wall stated she always learns and experiences new things.
“There are a lot of niche subjects. Last year my team went to nationals for poultry evaluation. It was really cool because my friends and I weren’t raised with farming backgrounds but we got to go to Indianapolis to go compete,” Wall said.
She views FFA as a way for her and her classmates to expand their horizons and experience things like being in leadership positions for the first time.
“There’s a lot of different things I’ve learned, not just on an agricultural level, but being a leader and being a productive member of society as well,” Wall said.
From farming skills to networking, Wall believes every student should be involved with FFA if they get the opportunity.
“It’s kind of a weird thing you wouldn’t think to do in high school with your spare time. You get a chance to broaden your horizons and learn about agriculture which is a very fundamental aspect of our society,” Wall said. “Our food, fiber, fuel, natural resources, all those things that normally we just aren’t educated about and I think it’s really important. It helps with advocacy for agriculture which is really needed in younger generations.”
