HAMILTON, Ohio – Many students long for the day they get a vehicle and can drive to school. However, driving the family tractor isn’t generally what most had in mind. 

However, driving a tractor to school is a tradition at Ross High School. While the event went away for a few years; it came back strong last year. This year 23 students drove their tractors to the Ross Police Department and then got a police escort to school. 

Drive Your Tractor to School Day was organized by the Ross/Butler Tech FFA Chapter at Ross High School.

The tractors were parked in full view of the busy highway that passes by. Students from the three buildings on the Ross campus went out to see the tractors.

“Tractor Day is one of our favorite traditions,” said Brian Martin, principal of Ross High School. “It had gone away for several years, and I don’t know why, but we brought it back a couple of years ago. We get so many positive comments from our community, and our kids enjoy it. As a kid who grew up on a farm, it is special for me as well. I like to see our students celebrating and promoting agriculture.”

Jeff Korb, FFA advisor, and students Stephen Mallory and Ben Schulte organized the event. It was brought back in 2021 when 22 tractors made the trek to school.

“It is something that our chapter has wanted to do for many years,” Korb said. “We were given the go-ahead to do that last year. With this being a busy area, instead of having the tradition where the kids drive the tractors to school from home in the morning, we came up with the idea of assembling at the Ross Police Department in Ross. Then we have a police escort/parade from the police department to the high school. It is impressive.”

The tractors were lined up, smallest to largest, in order of horsepower, which shows the growth of the machines, Korb said. They had an array of manufacturers, from John Deere to International, including Case IH, and a Yanmar.

“It’s a great community-supported activity and agriculture, being as challenging as it is on a daily basis, it’s nice that these agriculture-minded students can showcase some of their equipment that otherwise people wouldn’t get a chance to see,” Korb said.

Mallory drove an International 1086 about 10 miles to the police department. He is the son of Mike and Melissa Mallory. “It is something I have always been interested in,” he said. “I thought that being able to do this would be a cool tradition for our school and our FFA Chapter.”

Schulte, the son of Steve and Lisa Schulte, had three tractors in the event. He and two friends drove them from his family’s farm, also about 10 miles.

“It is interesting to see so many people putting it on Facebook,” Schulte said. “Everybody is saying this is their favorite thing that we’ve done; it’s fun watching the little kids from the other buildings come and have fun.”

Jennifer Lake, a teacher who lives on a farm, said her math students loved to come out and see the tractors. “I love that there are more John Deere than Internationals,” she said with a grin.