By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

ALEXANDRIA, Ky. — One in every six students at Campbell County High School in northern  Kentucky is an FFA member. Not bad, considering the program was eliminated from the school’s curriculum seven years ago.

There are just more than 1,300 students at this high school in Alexandria, Ky. and 225 are members of the FFA. Spearheading this effort are advisors Erin Jury and Clay Sullivan.

“There was an ag agent in place here at school who didn’t carry the program the way it should have been,” Jury said. “For one reason or another they weren’t adding to the test scores and didn’t show it was a valuable part of the school. And once that person retired they didn’t fill that position for a long time.”

Jury (now in her fourth year) and Sullivan (in his first) came on board after a new superintendent (and former principal) gave the chapter new life. To this day there are more students participating in FFA than any other activity offered at the high school.

Both advisors came up through the FFA ranks (Jury in Nelson County, Sullivan in Pendleton County). Sullivan had great leadership and training and eventually was a regional and state officer within his FFA chapter. Things were a bit different for Jury.
“When I came up with FFA I didn’t have the opportunities announced to me. Things like regional officer and state officers were never opportunities given to me,” Jury said. “I wasn’t informed of those opportunities. So when I came back from college I wanted to make sure these kids knew what they could do and accomplish.
“There are a lot more opportunities now because it’s more leadership based. These kids will get out in the real world and become part of an organization or they’ll fill key positions within a company some day.”

Jury points to four key activities for her chapter: FFA Camp, Regional FFA Day, the FFA state convention and the Freshman Leadership Conference. This is in addition to the many annual fundraisers.

“FFA camp is great because the kids map out their entire calendar year and get acquainted with one another,” Jury said. “The Regional FFA Day includes all the competitions we’ve been preparing for, and the Freshman Leadership Conference is important because it’s the first time the freshmen can interact with the other classes.”

One reason why the numbers are so strong is that Jury and Sullivan make frequent sales pitches to eighth-graders, hoping they’ll join FFA.

“We tell the eighth-graders that FFA isn’t about farming, it’s about leadership, about becoming CEOs, about running businesses and more,” Jury said.

Jury serves as the school’s golf coach, but prefers teaching agriculture more than anything else.

“Any ag teacher who coaches a lot of sports isn’t doing their job,” Jury said. “I don’t have time to coach a lot of sports. Teaching ag is my job.”

Campbell County High School is a hotbed of sports in the northern Kentucky area.

“But not every kid has a talent or the skill to play sports, so we can find something for the kids to compete in here in the FFA,” Jury said. “With FFA we’ll find their potential.”

With so many members in its chapter fundraising is the least of the unit’s worries. Recently the group netted $2,500 from a donkey basketball game.

“We made money, but we did it mainly for publicity, as a way to tell others in school about FFA,” Jury said.

“It’s fun watching them grow with this,” Sullivan said. “I wish we had before and after photos, showing their timidness from the time they’re freshmen to their outgoing development as seniors.”
The Campbell County FFA chapter has been gold-rated five of the past seven years. “Now we’re working on becoming nationally rated,” Jury said.