National FFA Week: Growing up from the ground, Bell City FFA

Around Bell City, there is one thing, farmland. So, because of this, it might seem natural the local school district would have had a long history with an FFA chapter. However, this is not the case.

Bell City was the only school in Stoddard County to not have FFA club until this year, said FFA advisor Sara Green. She said the last time the school had this club was in the school year of 1969-70.

"This is the first year that they've had an ag education, and with education comes FFA. So it's the very first program. We started getting everything ready in July, and we had our chartering ceremony in November. We had probably 10 or more schools show up to support us, and the community has been super supportive as well, " Green said.

The chapter has 47 members.

Senior Maggie Stubenrauch said she decided to be in this organization because she had been raised on a farm.

"I figured to get to know more of the behind-the-scenes stuff other than just planting and in-field stuff. There's a lot more behind it, like chemicals. I have no clue what animals are like, so kind of learning and getting more knowledge about it all."

She is one of three triplets in this club this year, with her sister, Kamryn, and brother, Logan. Logan said after he graduates this spring he plans to go to Three Rivers College to get an agribusiness degree and hopefully continue his family's farm.

The Stubenrauch family opened their farm to the agriculture class during a unit, Farm to Table. Students were able to go out to the farm to ride a combine and learn how food goes from the field to trucks to a granary.

"It helps when you know. People don't understand how much farming truly does to keep the world running. I mean anything you pretty much eat, comes off a farm, or even how you drive your car. So it's all really good for us to learn," Maggie said.

Along with learning how farms work, the FFA group has some individuals, such as freshman Gwenyth Bowling, who joined to learn other hands-on work, such as welding.

Bowling said she decided to join FFA because her dad is interested in welding ,and she is interested in learning about floraculture, horses, and breeding and felt FFA would be a good opportunity for her to learn a bit more about all of these different things.

Bowling said while they continue FFA she would like to see the welding aspect come to their shop to learn how to put things together. Another member, freshman Kailyn McIntyre, said she hopes that down the line they will learn how to show animals.

They are currently working on one of their first projects — garden beds for the community to use.

"We used to have a community garden where people could go and just grab what they needed if they wanted fresh vegetables, and we want to start that up again," Bowling said.

Green said there has been a lot of good participation from all the students and she hopes to see the same amount of participation and engagement from all students.

"When the kids want to learn it makes it fun to teach them. There are so many things you can do in agriculture. There are plants, animals, shop, conservation and natural resources, and food sciences that we can learn about. It makes it fun and exciting every day."

One thing each of the students said was how supportive both the community and surrounding schools have been.

"On the support side, our school has helped us. We're not the most fortunate school and so I think they understood, you know, we are surrounded by agriculture," Maggie said. "We were like the only school around here who didn't have FFA and did not offer that to other students that could be interested in it. The school's helped financially. Even the officers have gotten to go on two trips to learn more than just what we learn in the classroom."