Tucked between U.S. Highway 93 and some particularly curvy s-bends of the Flathead River sits a broad building with the words H.E. Robinson Ag Education Center on bold blue paneling. Inside, and across the 127 acres the center sits on, over 400 students from Glacier and Flathead high schools are hard at work welding, woodworking, wiring, weeding, or watching lambs be born, depending on the season.
The center serves as Kalispell’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter, offering electives for the first half of high schoolers’ days on a three-component model of agricultural education: contextual learning in the class or lab, work-based learning through Supervised Agricultural Experience programs, and leadership roles through the FFA.
Classes
What do ag education courses cover, anyway? The better question might be what don’t they. In ag one, students dabble in public speaking, power tool safety, woodworking, plumbing, and undergo a required certification in the National Tractor Safety program. Second year students get to choose between ag two and welding one (or enroll in both if their schedule can manage) in which each challenges the student to create their own semester-long project.
Alexa Piseno, a senior and secretary for FFA, evoked the image of a toolbox caddy she made in the woodworking unit freshman year.
“Mine’s still in my bathroom,” she said.
Enrolled in one of the few FFA programs in the nation that teach students how to brand cattle, juniors in ag three brand calves, take on pasture management, and learn residential electrical wiring and construction. Seniors learn business and economics, build resumes and spend time planning for a degree or job in their area of choosing.
Matti Hartle, a 17-year-old junior and communications reporter for the FFA, described using some of her electrical skill to help in building a family workshop.
“My twin brother and I knew ag and so were able to wire the shop,” she said. “Mom was very surprised.”
Natural resources, an elective offered to juniors and seniors, covers forestry, horse and mule packing, flyfishing, and chainsaw safety.
The welding three-semester elective series culminates in an opportunity to test in an American Welding Society certification. Richard Darrach, welding instructor, noted that about half of students who take the certification pass, recounting students who transform from a minimal or zero skillset.
“By the time they leave they’re highly qualified to get further training, and they’ve learned quite a bit about the industry,” Darrach said. “I like watching students learn and figure things out.”
Of the center’s 14 classes, the remaining four are core required classes such as English, Biology, and a Social Studies course on Western Civilization for freshmen and sophomores, American History for juniors. The curriculum fills out the day, turning what would otherwise be a short one- or two-period trip to the Ag Center into a solid half-day of courses.
FFA Leadership
Every student at the Ag Center is automatically enrolled in the Ag’s leadership program, FFA. How much they want to be involved, however, is entirely up to the high schooler.
FFA leadership roles are comprised of a president, secretary, treasurer, sentinel, reporter and parliamentarian. Positions are a full year’s commitment, annually voted on in April with officers sworn in during the center’s May awards banquet.
Tucker Hankinson, a product of the center himself, teaches ag one and three and advises for the FFA leaders. “Really they run the Ag Center,” said Hankinson, known by students as Mr. H.
FFA leaders plan and organizes the center’s events, assigning event committee members, update the chapter fiscal statements, organize community service and plan visits to local high schoolers to recruit them to FFA.
Fundraising also falls under this scope, most notably with the center’s annual greenhouse plant sale, which raises between $10,000 to $15,000 each year, usually with a line around the corner of the main Ag Center building. Students completely run the sale, headed by FFA leaders.
“I love the ability that it gives me to be an active member in the community and leadership in being a role model for kids,” Piseno said.
Of course, it’s not all work. The part of the meeting that sparks the most energy from the FFA leaders is the recreation that colors the end of the chapter’s monthly meetings. Last December was a heated gingerbread competition, and lazer tag from a few years prior received an honorable mention along with last summer’s slip in slide crafted from tarps and dish soap in one of the center’s fields.
“It’s given me a community I can count on,” said Sophie Banzet, an Ag Center senior and the FFA’s parliamentarian. “I’ve made some of my best friends here, and I love being able to try new things I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do before.”
Supervised Agricultural Experience
The work-based component of the Ag Center entails that every student takes on a paid or unpaid project of their own, or an agricultural or trades-based job.
This part of the curriculum begins in the second year, manifesting as an opportunity for students to get creative. For his SAE, Nick Fletcher, 19 and treasurer for the FFA, runs a welding and woodworking shop out of his garage using a $400 welder and table saw.
“It’s custom-fab,” Fletcher said. “I’ve built signs, fire pits, a metal door.”
Students show animals for their SAEs, and will raise hogs, steer, or sheep. They’ll begin caring for them at calving, selecting their diet, and handle every aspect of their life up until the fair. The center also affords students the opportunity to raise animals by housing them if they don’t have the space at home. Each expense must be tracked using FFA’s online portal Academic Experience Tracker (AET), to be printed and submitted to teachers at the end of the season for grading.
“When they get to the end, they know exactly to the penny how much they’ve invested,” Hankinson said. “It teaches a lot of financial responsibility.”
The result is a worthwhile paycheck. Jayla Wise, senior and FFA president, has made $3,000 to $4,000 while raising steers and hogs. She’s earned a full-ride scholarship to Casper College in Wyoming for livestock judging, where she hopes to switch lanes and hone her skills in welding.
“It’s helped me buy a car for college,” she said.
Career Development Events
Career Development Events, or CDEs, are the center’s after-school programs that allow students to compete against other teams in state and national FFA conventions. Students get to select from a long list of extracurriculars, including Mechanics, Agronomy, Ag Sales, Veterinary Science, Livestock Judging, Horse Evaluation, Parliamentary Procedure, Forestry, Meat Science, Prepared Speaking, Extemporaneous Speaking, and FFA Creed Speaking.
The majority are group events, with the opportunity to also place as an individual based on your scores. Ag Sales, for example, is primarily an individual competition.
In national’s last year, Kalispell’s FFA crew ranked in the gold division in sales, silver division in parliamentary procedure and mechanics, and bronze in forestry.
“I think my favorite part about FFA is the comps,” Fletcher said. “You get to travel and see Montana and be with people who have the same interests as you.”
The competitions serve as another way for students to show their projects and skills off in front of industry professionals, getting some footing in the real-world career world. Alongside hands-on application, the center’s environment has cultivated a place for community amongst the students.
“Being here I’ve come into myself,” Wise said. “In eighth grade and freshman year I didn’t know what to do. Everyone is so supportive, and they care about you. I think that’s the best thing about the Ag Center.”
Piseno agreed, iterating the hands-on skills she’s learned that will help her when she’s out of high school.
“If your kids are looking for electives, I tell parents to send them here,” Piseno said. “There’s not a bad bone here.”
This story was first published in Flathead Valley Family magazine, which can be picked up later this month on newsstands across the valley.