The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
FFA celebrates 70-year milestone
Local FFA chapter helps aspiring farmers by providing support
By Mike Dolsen, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: February 8, 2007
Although Feb. 13 is a day typically reserved for last-minute Valentine purchases, past members of Saline's Future Farmers of America chapter and the organization's supporters will be busy preparing to mark a milestone.
Advertisement
Saline's FFA chapter will celebrate 70 years of helping the community's aspiring farmers and agriculturists.
FFA is a local, state and national organization that aims to "promote individual development, exceptional leadership and professional accomplishment in an agriculturally based co-curricular atmosphere," according to its mission statement.
To achieve these goals, the organization has implemented a three-part program that includes classroom and laboratory instruction, supervised agricultural experience programs and FFA activity involvement surrounding a vocational agriculture curriculum.
Saline's chapter was chartered Feb. 13, 1937, by F.W. Gettel. In the past seven decades, it has produced five state officers, eight American degree winners (the highest FFA honor), 112 state degree winners and 13 advisers.
From 1955 to 1982, Michigan State University graduate Alton Ealy was the FFA adviser while serving as a vocational agriculture teacher at Saline High School.
"I taught animal science, farm crops, soils and farm management," Ealy said. "It was a four-year rotation."
Robert Girbach, a student during Ealy's tenure, praises the adviser's teaching methods, which he attributes to Ealy's love of farming.
"He let us do our thing," Girbach said. "Some advisers or teachers frown upon you doing things that you like to do, but he didn't. He would let you do what you like, but he'd never let you get out of hand either."
When Ealy arrived in Saline from Ithaca, N.Y., FFA was strictly a group for "farm boys," but expanded to include all farm youth.
In addition to diversifying in terms of the types of students allowed, during the late 1960s, the group went from solely boys to a membership comprising both genders.
"We were the first FFA class to have a girl in the class," said Girbach, a member from 1965 to 1969. "We had one at the time, and before we graduated, there were two or three involved.
"The girls fit right in. We didn't have any disagreements with them. I know that some of the chapters in the country did, but not us."
During FFA's run, the group has been involved with various community activities, and its members have attended many regional and national conferences. Of all the activities that Ealy holds dear, setting up and cleaning up after the Saline Community Fair is foremost in his memory.
"I was a manager at the Saline Community Fair while I was an adviser here," Ealy said. "We set up and tore down all the facilities for the fair. (The fair board) paid us for doing that.
"(The fair) used to be in the parking lot where the middle school is, and then it went down to Henne Field after that. It was there for a few years, and then it moved out to the (Washtenaw) Farm Council Grounds."
It was because of an FFA conference that member William Hoeft experienced the most memorable occasion of his high school years.
"I actually got to take a trip to Washington, D.C., for a leadership conference," he said. "I met President Reagan and drank tea in the Rose Garden. As a high school junior, that was the highlight of my high school career."
For Girbach, Saline's FFA awards trip to Chicago was most memorable. During a livestock show, he set a goal to eventually show animals at the Chicago livestock yard.
"(The show) was in 1966 and in 1974. After my wife and I got married, we had championship hogs that we took out there," Girbach said. "It took me quite a while, but we got back out there."
Throughout Girbach's time with FFA, from 1965 to 1969, he viewed it as a way to open up future opportunities. He was part of livestock and meat class judging teams. Girbach said without the help of FFA, he may not have been exposed to what he would dedicate a majority of his free time to in the future.
"FFA allowed me to see some of the biggest shows, which made me want to participate, which made me want to win," he said.
"Seven years after the show in Chicago, (my wife and I) went to the North American (show), which was in Louisville, Ky. We won the sheep show there, and within a year, we went up to Edmonton, Canada, and won the world sheep show."
In the 1980s, Saline's FFA chapter went through a period of inactivity. Lance Luckhardt, a FFA state degree winner, describes this time with FFA as a "rebirth." Luckhardt said the chapter had literally died out.
"We pretty much restarted FFA when I was a part of it," said Luckhardt, a member from 1987 to 1991. "It was the end of FFA, and then we were there at the restart of it."
A 1984 State Degree winner, Hoeft also remembers this period of rebirth. He credits Tom Stahl, the adviser from 1982 to 1987, for bringing the organization back to its former glory.
"The ag program in Saline started to dwindle, and it wasn't until 1982 or 1983 that we got a new ag science teacher," Hoeft said. "(Tom Stahl) got the program back up and running.
"FFA had died off. They'd lost their vocational class, and all they had were ag classes. Tom Stahl brought it back to the forefront, and I think since then, Dave Mellor has been really pushing the program and has kept it up to speed."
It was because of FFA's new leadership that Hoeft was able to win the state degree in 1984 (the last previous win was in 1975). He earned a state agribusiness degree by keeping records of his agricultural experiences.
"You can either win a degree for production agriculture or agribusiness, and I won it for agribusiness," Hoeft said. "I worked on a couple of dairy farms for Saline Valley Fertilizer. I used the money to fund my own agribusiness start-up."
Even after Hoeft's membership with FFA in high school, Hoeft has kept up with Saline's FFA program. Although the club has changed, Hoeft feels as though it's the same basic program as the one he loved in the 1980s.
"I've helped Mr. Mellor even as I've been out of high school and really, the program hasn't changed a lot," Hoeft said. "The titles are different, but the programs are the same. They still practice the parliamentary procedures team. The chapter meetings are still run under Robert's Rules of Order.
"It has focused more on leadership and taking on active roles in running the chapter and becoming involved in the community. They've stretched that a little bit more, which is great."
Since the 1960s, Saline has become a community slowly moving away from farming. When Ealy, FFA's seventh adviser, came to Saline, he recalls it as a community of retired farmers. He still sees Saline as a farming community, but the role of farming has changed.
"This was a retired farmer's town when I moved here, and farming was pretty big," he said. "Now the farms are bigger, and there are a lot fewer of them."
Girbach has taken a hard-lined view to the change. He feels that the change is a result of people taking their heritage for granted.
"Saline was a community back then that was 60 to 70 percent farming. Now it's probably 4 to 5 percent, if we're lucky," Girbach said. "People nowadays have forgotten that their parents were immigrants, coming to the country with nothing, and they came here to farm. People in the city don't realize how good they have it with the cheaper food and products that are available."
Hoeft, however, is more positive about the changes. He acknowledges that adjustments have occurred, but said the chance of FFA being phased out completely is near-impossible.
"As long as people still buy houses with grass in front of them and they go to grocery stores to shop, there's always going to be a need for agriculture and there's always going to be need for people in the community who are friends of agriculture," Hoeft said.
"As a nation, especially with the fuel crisis, we're really going to need strong leaders in the agricultural field to be able to get our products out."
Mike Dolsen, a senior at Saline High School, is an intern at the newspaper. He can be reached at mdolsen27@gmail.com.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
Staff Blog, "Inside The Newsroom"
TOP JOBS
