Tri High FFA Creates Kids Ag Experience

Tri High FFA Barnyard

The Tri High FFA Barnyard is a spring tradition at the school in Henry County just south of New Castle, Indiana. The event was held Thursday and Joel Wicker, the Tri High FFA President, says educating 400 younger students about agriculture is the focus.

“We bring the entire Tri Elementary up to the high school and we’ve got several different species of livestock out here. We’ve got a lot of equipment and what we do is talk to the kids about the basics of agriculture, how it will affect their life and how it will benefit them later in life. It’s just the basics of what agriculture is and what it does.”

The chapter hosts K through 6 graders, and even though the Tri school system is right in the middle of farm ground, what the students see is new for many of them.

“We’re in a rural school but believe it or not most of these kids do not live on a farm. It’s kind of shock but most of them know the basics that you go plant corn, but they don’t know anything specific. We’ve got some later technology and we’ve got quite a few things that when we talk to the kids they don’t really understand what it is at first but at the end of the little presentation they think it’s cool and they ask questions just to learn about it.”

Wicker, a junior, told HAT Barnyard is now in its 23rd year and the students even receive a gift to take home to mom.

“As long as I’ve been an officer here we’ve done it on the Thursday before Mother’s Day because FFA has a greenhouse and we have flowers for all the elementary students to take home for Mother’s Day. So we try to tie all that together timing wise, and the weather is usually perfect this time of year so it just makes things work out real nice.”

Guests at the event included Indiana State Representative, Tom Saunders and FFA state officers Briley Fichter and Brandan Bergdall.

The complete Joel Wicker interview:Joel Wicker Tri High FFA

(Pictured, FFA members Michael Keesling and Kristen McNew help students get hands-on machinery experience ad Tri High FFA President Joel Wicker, Indiana State Representative Tom Saunders and Indiana FFA State Southern Region Vice President Briley Fichter)

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