Student interest in GHS ag program picks up after a few years in
flux
Gilroy – In the pouring rain, Katelyn Davey trudges through the muddy field, umbrella in one hand, plastic trough in the other. As the rain rushes down, she rinses off the object and then heads over to the barn to lend her teacher a hand with the haybales.
It may be wet, miserable and a Friday, but the Gilroy High School senior is raising a market pig, an animal she refers to as a “big moose,” and it gets hungry and anxious, rain or shine. And Davey, 17, wasn’t alone.
Other Gilroy High Future Farmers of America members tended to their livestock, fed goats, corralled a loose animal and cleaned out sopping wet and soiled pens. Sure, FFA is about livestock, crops and plants, but it’s also about leadership, dedication and responsibility.
“I wasn’t a very social person and I would never been able to get up in front of a class and speak,” Davey said. “It’s definitely taught me responsibility because I have an animal that I have to feed before and after school.”
The GHS senior arrives at the school farm at about 6:30am and returns at the end of the day to feed and exercise her pig. Like many students Davey was placed in one of the high school’s agriculture classes by her counselor and she had no idea she’d find her niche in the barn.
Heather Nolan can quickly name off many similar success stories, students who enter the program as typical careless teens but then improve their grades and attitudes after enrolling in agriculture classes. That’s why the FFA teacher is trying to spread the word about the numerous advantages of becoming a member.
Students who sign up for one of the agriculture classes offered at the high school are automatically enrolled in the FFA program and required to complete a project – but few choose to become active members. This year only 20 are actively involved in the 78-year-old national program.
But recruiting has been difficult. Nolan, who was just granted tenure after three years at GHS, came on board during a tumultuous time for Gilroy FFA. Robert Kuntz left in 2000 after 35 years heading the agriculture department and in the years following his retirement, the high school cycled through educators.
During his tenure, Kuntz said FFA was a popular program but enrollment dropped off in the late 1980s when the district began to shy away from vocational education and persuaded students to only take academic classes.
When Nolan took the job at GHS, seniors told her she was their fifth teacher in four years. To beef up their numbers, the 27-year-old teacher and a group of FFA students visited local middle schools and actually taught classes on a variety of agriculture related subjects.
Nolan wants others to know they can learn a variety of disciplines in FFA, from biotechnology and turf management to veterinarian science.
“I think a lot of people don’t realize what an important part agriculture plays in science,” she said.
The middle school recruitment appears to be working. Last year only 13 students were enrolled in Nolan’s introductory agriculture class and this year 41 signed up.
Other students may need a little push to sign up for FFA, but that wasn’t the case for Jiana Escobar.
The Gilroy native, who lives on her family’s beef ranch, first became involved in agriculture when she joined 4-H in seventh grade. In her freshman year at Gilroy High, she linked up with FFA and has been taking agriculture classes ever since.
Escobar, 17, has raised and auctioned off at least 10 animals, since she became involved in the program. It never gets boring, “cause each year you learn something new about the industry.”
When she first started raising livestock, the high school senior borrowed money from her parents for the start-up costs of purchasing the animal and paying for feed and other expenses. She attends numerous leadership conferences, is running for a state officer position and plans on pursuing a career as an agricultural lobbyist.
Four times a week she heads to her after school job at Silacci’s Feed Barn and then home to tend to her animals. And while most FFA students show and auction off their animals once a year, Escobar can often be found heading off to a fair somewhere in the state. This weekend she’s competing at the Junior Grand Nationals at the Cow Palace.
“I just totally dig it so I go to all of them,” she said with a smile.
Also Online
To learn more about the Future Farmers of America visit www.ffa.org.
