ALL ABOUT TRACTOR BY PAUL WALLEM Walter Baysinger was my FFA Advisor for four years in high school. Amongst a rowdy bunch of Farm kids, he calmly and firmly made us better citizens and encouraged us to set our sights higher. He’s gone now, and I will never forget his advice to us. I recently asked Max Newport, a retired farmer friend, what he remembered about his ag teacher. He said, “He was the best teacher of my four high school years.” He also remembered this teacher saying, “I don’t teach subject matter - I teach students.” “More Stories from the Heartland” is a new book just released by Max Armstrong. In the book, he includes a story about Larry Plapp, a recently retired FFA advisor. I believe it represents the memories that many of us have of our advisors. With Max’s permission, I have reproduced that story for you. We do love and appreciate the high school ag teachers who are educating not just our next generation of farmers but are preparing young people for leadership in all fields. In many communities, these men and women who advise the members of FFA are among the most involved people you will find. And when they fulfill decades of service, they deserve special thanks, which often includes a meaningful retirement gift. For Larry Plapp, there could have been no gift more meaningful. Larry grew up on a farm in Malta, Illinois, before moving on to a career as an ag teacher. After seven years at Belvidere High School in Illinois, Larry moved across the border to Lake Geneva-Badger High School where, after 30 years as a Badger, he retired. As you’d expect, Larry saw significant changes in agriculture education over those years. He notes that when he started, teaching centered on production agriculture — crops and livestock common to the Midwest — “corn and cows,” as he puts it. But as years went by, the focus broadened to include the agricultural sciences, food science, and botany, with additional courses in horticulture and landscaping. Larry proudly notes that as the career opportunities in agriculture expanded, so did his department at the school, with a third teacher added for the 2023 school year. At the school’s annual FFA Awards Banquet, Larry was properly celebrated for his devotion to agriculture and his students. He says he never did the job for recognition and expected little more than kind words and a plaque. Kind words were spoken, but Larry’s students had something bigger than a plaque to present to him. It was so big, he had to walk outside the school to see it. Like many farm kids who go off to college and then take non-farm jobs miles away, Larry lost touch with some of the important pieces of his childhood. But a group of about ten former and current students, parents, teachers, and Larry’s brother, Rick, spent the fall of 2021 through the spring of 2022 conspiring and working secretly to give Larry the surprise of his life. The family’s Super M-TA Farmall was parked in front of him as he walked out of the school. It was just as shiny as the day it rolled out of the IH factory more than sixty years earlier. It had been over thirty years since Larry last drove the tractor, gathering dust in a shed for decades after Larry’s dad, Elvin, moved on to newer models. Elvin passed away in 2021, just after his 90th birthday and just after Larry, his brother, and his dad had cleaned up an 1880s barn on the farm. He created a private agricultural heritage museum where the Plapp family gathers several times a year. It features antiques Elvin had collected, each accompanied by a laminated note card with comments he wrote. Larry said he thought about his dad a lot during those overwhelming moments when he first saw the tractor that night. Did he get behind the wheel and fire it up? “Oh, yeah,” says Larry. I drove it around the school parking lot with my suit and tie on like Oliver Wendell Douglas in Green Acres!” After the Super M-TA was exhibited at the Wisconsin FFA convention, it was put on a trailer and hauled back to the farm in Malta, where it sits among the other displays at the family museum. Paul Wallem was raised on an Illinois dairy farm. He was a 4H and FFA member. He spent 13 years with corporate IH in domestic and foreign assignments. He resigned to own and operate two IH dealerships. He is the author of THE BREAKUP of IH and SUCCESSES & INDUSTRY FIRSTS of IH. See all his books on www.PaulWallem.com. Email your comments to pwallem@aol.com |
