The Best in the West #9 -Brighton, TN
Story & Photos by Katijane Shoffner
Brighton FFA is ranked #9 this year in the Top 10 of the West Tennessee FFA Chapters. We talked to their advisors, Terri Lea, Dana Mills, and Shelby Covert [Swayne Huffman retired this year] during the last week of school, and literally walked their program on the Brighton High School campus. They have greenhouses, the start of a vet lab which will be the second one in Tipton County, and mini-pigs. “We have just started growing cut-flowers, there are some carnations already growing. It’s a goal that the students will sell cut flowers next fall, with row crop style growing. They are actually selling plants now, during lunch. Yesterday 33 kids came and bought plants from the FFA Studnts,” Terry Lea told us, “And then, of course, we have our pumpkin patch project. The pumpkin patch doesn’t have bathrooms, so we are building bathrooms in a pavilion-type building.” The pumpkin patch is a project that the Brighton FFA does for elementary school-aged children that allows them to actually get out and see things growing, along with having a hay ride with the kids. Games like ‘pumpkin sling-shots’, corn-hole games, and swing sets. The program is already full for this year, but look for an upcoming article that shows a little more detail, and how to get involved next year.
Animal Science, plant science, and agri-science are all taught at the school which includes things like welding and building. “My kids made porch swings this year, not just ordinary swings, but the swings that are like a bed.” Shelby Covert told us, “They made plant stands last year, and they have helped build the swing set and games for the pumpkin patch. But we piggyback off of each other when we have animals in, we do a ‘two-fer’, like when we had exotic animals the other day. The kids that actually have exotics brought in the animals, so the other kids could actually see them.” Dana Mills laughed, “We’re a revolving door here with animals! It feels so good with all of them.”
The Brighton team is working with a couple of grants that have allowed them to begin a Vet Lab, like Munford, but this lab is going to be for dogs. “The whole area is going to be remodeled, the big portion of the classroom will be set up with kennels, prep work, recovery, and the center area is going to become a full-on surgery.” Dana Mills told us, “It’s a little discombobulated right now, but most of the work will be done over the summer.” Currently, they have one momma cat with her kittens in-house. And yes, the kittens might be getting a little spoiled. They also have some mini-pigs behind the classroom in the open barn. They had had problems with keeping livestock animals at the school because people would walk around the track and try to ‘help them’ by feeding the animals. “When people don’t know what they are doing with the animals, they feed them the wrong food, or at the wrong time, or simply try to feed them human food. Especially with the pigs, these are mini’s and you can’t feed them what normal pigs eat. Because they are so tiny, they are on a very strict diet and feeding schedule.” Mills continued, “People don’t understand, and we know they are just trying to help, but they end up causing the animals severe injury! Their bellies start dragging the ground and they can’t move when they are overfed. Even though the animals may ‘look hungry’ it’s not ok to just randomly feed them.” With the addition of signs around the barn, most of the ‘helping’ has stopped. The kids go into the pens to feed them, clean up after them, and give them a good belly-rub. “The kids have been going learning about the pigs’ care, behavior, hands-on care,” Mills added, “everyone talks about how they are like dogs and so the kids are getting to see that, they’ve been working on putting harnesses on them, trying to do leash training.” Covert added, “They don’t realize how smart they are, pigs are super smart, and it’s fun to watch the kids learn just how smart they are.” Mills laughed, “Their next task will be hoof trimming, which they will do before schools out.”
They have plans to move them to a pasture behind the school, but work has to be done on the pasture to make it more ‘pig-friendly’ before they can be moved.
Brighton is also expecting to be doing the TCAT Welding program in the coming year, which is going to start being very important with Blue Oval City coming.
Caleb Turner, a freshman, was the first to tell us about his SAE. “My SAE is about working with tractors, getting them ready for the fields or working on them when they are broken down. I’d like to do that and help on the farm and keep doing this in the future, I really like to work on the farm.” He laughed, “I’m going to go to a technical school to learn a little more about tractors, but I’m staying on the farm.”
Houston Stewart, a freshman, was happy to talk about his family’s operation. “My SAE is about crop production. My family owns farms, Stewart Farms in Brighton, but we have farms in Tipton, Fayette, and Shelby Counties. We raise cotton, soybeans, cattle - but I don’t like the cattle as much as I do the row crop production.” He continued, “I would like to Texas A&M and get an ag degree.”
Logan Campisi, “My SAE is community service learning, I have projects planned for the next year, building pavilions and table for the trap shooters, for the non-profit trap shooting team program.” Logan is a Junior, and “plans to go to trade school, get certified for weding, then going to college for either petroleum or aerospace engineering.”
Ella Stacy, “My SAE is in animal science. I’m doing a project right now on how dogs react to different genres of music. My family just bought a cattle farm a few years ago. I’m expecting to do a lot with that! We have black angus, we are selling processed meat to customers, and expect to be busier this year!” Ella is in tenth grade and is thinking about doing something in Ag Business.
The FFA planted a memorial garden to honor Michelle Rankin, their teacher that was killed in an accident a couple of years ago. “It’s nice to go out there and sit at lunch.” Covert told us, “Honoring Michelle was something everyone wanted to do.”
The Brighton FFA is a great program with a lot to look forward to in the coming years!