By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

JACKSON CENTER, Ohio — Located in northeastern Shelby County, the quaint, peaceful Jackson Center town of 1,500 is as close knit as they come and whenever there’s a cry out to help the schoolchildren in this community, the entire village comes to the rescue.

So when the decision was made by one school administrator two years ago that there was no need for an FFA chapter in the village, many residents rebelled.

“FFA has had a stronghold in this part of Shelby County for 39 years, but a few years ago the superintendant and the school board felt farming in the area was dying out and there was no need for the chapter,” said John Lenhart, one of those responsible for ressurecting the FFA chapter and an alumni of the school.

“They perceived agribusiness strictly as farming. There was a joint vocational school down the road a ways but few kids in the community went there. It was a distance to travel and not having an FFA chapter close by was not the same.”

So about 18 months ago 12 people got together and made it their goal to give new life to FFA in Jackson Center. Last August school officials and some students began recruiting FFA members. Jackson Center’s enrollment (K through 12) is 500. There were 28 members last spring. Today there are 40 and the numbers are steadily growing.

“Thanks to businesses like Honda, Dannon Yogurt and Airstream, Shelby County has the top industrial base and ranks No. 2 in agribusiness in the state,” Lenhart said. “But our best assets are the kids, so as alumni we’re real excited about bringing the FFA back to Jackson Center.”

Sidney is the largest municipality in the county. Jackson Center is a close second.

“A few of us tried to get the chapter revamped at first but it fell through the cracks,” Lenhart said. “But the alumni and the farm community recognized the value of having the chapter around. The business community needed it and the agribusiness in the area needed it. It was a win-win situation.”

To this day the chapter is thriving and most recently the curriculum includes topics like public speaking, job interview classes, parliamentary procedures, dairy judging and soil judging.

“We also have 10 new computers and a number of new textbooks, so we have a good solid base and we’re heading in the right direction,” Tim Lyden said. “We put a lot of work into making sure the FFA chapter survived.”

Students in the Jackson Center school district could have traveled 20-30 miles to attend chapters in other parts of the county. But this group of concerned parents and school administrators didn’t want that to happen.

“I think most of us who have been through a program like this understood the value of what it does in rounding and creating young men and women,” Lenhart said. “When it was absent that one year we lost some of that town value. When it came back, it was a breath of fresh air.”

Ron Wiessinger serves as president of the Jackson Center FFA Boosters, helping to raise funds for the chapter and those funds will be used to send members to camps and to conventions. They also will use some of the funds as scholarship money. Before going idle for a year the chapter raised more than $380,000 a year for scholarships.

Welcome back, Jackson Center FFA.