By DOUG GRAVES

Ohio Correspondent

VERSAILLES, Ohio — National FFA Week is Feb. 16-23 and chapters all over the United States will be celebrating.

 FFA leaders in Ohio say the organization plays a key part in helping students understand the part agriculture plays in their lives and helps them open doors to a future in an ag related field.

There’s a sign behind the desk of Versailles High School FFA advisor Dena Wuebker that reads: “Service is the Rent We Pay for Living.”

Service to the community is highly encouraged at this chapter in Darke County in Ohio, and at many other Ohio FFA chapters as well.

“Our membership expectations are set quite high as we want the kids to perform three or four community service activities throughout the year,” Wuebker said, “and we provide them with many activities to choose from, like our annual toy drive, can food drive, harvest sale and farm safety training just to name a few.”

Tops on Wuebker’s list of opportunities for the kids is the annual Green Hand Conference, a function which attracts children from throughout southwest Ohio, showing them the unique opportunities found in FFA.

“It’s our belief that FFA helps develop lifetime skills in kids, things like leadership, communication, personal growth, teamwork and interviewing skills,” Wuebker said.

Versailles High School in Darke County has been in existence since 1935 and has offered FFA for eighth graders the past eight years. There were 16 members during the inaugural year. There are 34 members to this day. Growth for those at Versailles has been slow and the program is not yet available for seventh-graders.

 “The eighth grade FFA students can earn high school credits in the areas of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources,” Wuebker said. “These students take FFA courses every day, all year long. We’re offering them more exposure to agriculture and we have high expectations of them.”

Talawanda Schools in Oxford, Ohio is the third-oldest program in the state. The program at the high school started in 1957. More than 200 students at this school take ag-only classes.

“Our FFA students can choose from five different areas of concentration – food and natural resources, greenhouse management, livestock selection care, mechanical principles and ag business,” said Mike Derringer, ag education teacher. “The community is very supportive of FFA at the high school.”

Kellie Beiser, ag education teacher at Edgewood High School and Butler Tech in Butler County, says FFA “opens the students’ doors and their minds.”

“A lot of students in our community would never consider ag as a career because they’re not from a farm anymore,” Beiser said. “Thanks to FFA they’re making connections to work, volunteer and intern. FFA is more than just one thing. It’s opening doors to the industry and in our community that’s highly important.”

Turning back the hands of time one will see that the inspiration for FFA began after the Smith-Hughes National Vocational Education Act of 1917 established vocational agriculture courses. Then, Virginia’s Future Farmers clubs for boys in agriculture led to the establishment of a national organization, The Future Farmers of America, at the Hotel Baltimore in Kansas City, Missouri in 1928.

Girls were permitted to join as members in 1969. The official name of the organization was changed from the Future Farmers of America to the National FFA Organization.

Today there are 24,800 FFA members in 308 chapters across Ohio alone for students in grades nine through 12.