The Best in the West #7 Dyersburg FFA
Barnyard Buddies helps to get kids familiar with agriculture practices - while having a LOT of fun!
by Katijane Shoffner
Dyersburg FFA has gotten to start this year off with a new classroom. They left a tiny classroom in May [with an off campus barn & greenhouse] and have moved to a large classroom plus a vet lab this fall. They plan to expand hands-on learning with their vet lab, venturing out to work with all aspects of the animals.
Lyndsey Butler, the advisor, started teaching at Dyersburg three years ago. She has taught for 15 years but it has always been at a county school so she wasn’t quite sure how it would be to teach at a city school where agriculture isn’t as influential with the kids. “When they come to Ag classes they typically know nothing. I wasn’t sure how that was going to be when I first started here but now I love it, because I get to really teach them something everyday.” This has quickly become one of her favorite parts of the program. The kids are excited about learning, “I love getting to offer them new experiences they wouldn’t normally get. One of my favorite examples is a student whose name is Danielle. In my large animal class we have permission to take the students off campus to large animal barns. For this class period we had met Dr. Steve Allen at one of our students barns to castrate some pigs. Dr. Allen let some of our kids help with deworming and vaccinating. They also got to help in assisting him with the castrations. Most of these kids have never seen anything like this. So we said, ‘Okay, who wants to help next?’ and she jumped at the opportunity. She had on slides with socks and these pigs are on shavings. And we said Danielle, you're going to get all those shavings in your socks and she said I don’t care I’ve never done this before. She jumps in there and does it. Then when they went back to school all of her other teachers were telling me about how she had the best time and was telling them all about it. She talked about it for weeks and then when I had her in my class last year, she still talked about it.” Butler was excited, telling us about her student’s excitement.
The biggest thing they do is to try to promote Agriculture within the city limits. Because they are in a city school, they don’t have as many SAEs. This is one of their things that they hope to grow through the years. They have a whole new group of barn kids this year that don’t know nearly as much about the animals. “With most of these kids, you would never think that they would be showing a pig.” Butler told us, but they do.
They have recently added Mellissa Lowry on as part time help at the High School and to be in charge of the Middle School program. [Which the team at Cypress thinks is a great addition to be getting to start teaching the importance of agriculture so early. After all, it is the foundation of America!] She will be at the High School in the afternoons teaching Agriscience and the Middle Schools in the morning. She will have all three grades at the Middle School. The plan is for her to teach every kid in a rotation unless they are being pulled for extra help. It will be a 4 ½ week program to teach the kids a little bit about agriculture. She will have access to an outdoor amphitheater, a fish pond, and a gazebo where they plan to give the students some hands-on experience, and allows them to get their hands dirty. They have talked about adding a small greenhouse at the Middle School in the future to start vegetables in the spring and then move them to the big greenhouse at the High School for the plant sale. The science teacher at the Middle School has also talked about partnering up and starting hydroponics and seeing what they can do in the future. The hope is to get enough of it at the Middle School to want to continue on when they get to High School.
They have a pretty young officer team. They have 2 seniors, 3 juniors, and the rest are sophomores. Lyndsey came to Dyersburg in 2020, the year that the world turned upside down. So she has kind of had to start over due to not being able to really do anything that year with the kids. “I had a great start going into 2020, following Kelsey Swirka, but then 2020 happened - and we lost so much.” So many of the upperclassmen have not had the normal experience they would have.
“Ethan Bell is our president and one of two seniors on the team. He is also a leader on the Football team. He has been a good role model, and spokesperson. People realize, ‘hey he’s a good football player and he’s active in FFA’. Amelia Langford and Campbell Boswell are juniors, John Houston Hollingsworth is a senior, and they are the Vice Presidents. Alexa MacArthur is the Secretary and a sophomore, Bailey Escue is the Reporter as a sophomore and she will be in charge of promoting the chapter through social media. Bailey Willard is our Treasurer and a sophomore. She was our surprise addition to the officer team. She came in second semester and just rocked it. JR Dykes is the Sentinel and a junior. He’s been the quiet one that we have had to push along but then when he does it he loves it.” Butler continued, “Our officer team comes from all different walks of life. Some of them show livestock. Ethan Bell shows registered red angus cattle. Bailey Willard has shown sheep and goats. JR shows Tennessee Walking horses. Alexa MacArthur is the one that lives in the middle of a subdivision and is showing a pig this year. She’s also on the dance team so she’s just one of those kids you wouldn’t necessarily pick to be showing a pig. Campbell and John Houston both come from farming backgrounds. Then we have some city kids that have just stepped up to the plate and found their way into leadership roles.”
Butler is very happy with her FFA team, and with her the growth her classes have shown. “The potential for growth in knowledge is so great for these kids, when they learn about agriculture, their whole world opens up a little more.”
Congratulations on making the top 10 - we can’t wait to see where you will be next year.
