SEMO FAIR IN FULL SWING; AGRICULTURE REMAINS BIG ATTRACTION

The rain didn't stop the Future Farmers of America from setting up their exhibits Monday afternoon at the SEMO District Fair.

And the water that lingered along the edge of Broadway didn't stop children from picking up the wrapped candy that the district fair parade participants threw at them later that day.

Crowds lined Broadway to see the high school bands, fire engines, antique cars and tractors, and horses in the parade that marked what seems to most people to be the opening of the fair. But for some, the fair began earlier.

Steven King, who teaches agriculture at the Perry County District 32 Career Center, was at the FFA building at Arena Park Monday afternoon with two of his students. They emptied bags of 10 ears of shucked yellow and white corn, piled them in neat pyramids held in place between nails they drove into the table and placed the labels from the students who entered the corn on the pyramids. A large pile of plastic bags accumulated as they worked.

Students from counties stretching from Ste. Genevieve to the Arkansas border submitted entries in the fair. Even though the soil varies from heavy clay to black earth and the terrain from hilly to level, every entry is judged by the same criteria.

King pointed to one particular pyramid. The label says that Kimberly Ann Hinkebein of Chaffee grew those ears. King said they were the kinds of ears the judges were looking for -- large with even rows of kernels that fill them out from end to end.

King isn't the judge, but the criteria are objective enough that he was nearly certain that Hinkebein would rate a blue ribbon.

The crop and livestock shows are the heart of any county, district or state fair. The demolition derby, the country music, the beauty contests, the corndogs, the funnel cakes, the rides might draw crowds; but the fair is at its heart an agricultural show.

Much of the lives of teachers like King and his students, and farmers go into those stacks of corn and bunches of soybean stalks and displays of livestock.

Students who enter steers have to be working on them no later than March, and those who enter hogs have to start by June, said Jim Welker, district supervisor of agricultural education for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

George Touchette, one of the students helping King unload, said he might get time to see the demolition derby, but he comes to the fair "to look at the crops and the animals and see how they grow."

Touchette, a Perry County High School student who lives with his parents on 86 acres near Brewer, wants to farm and be a veterinarian when he finishes school.

He brought his own corn, soybeans, peppers and sunflower heads to the fair and even entered some in the open competition against adult full-time farmers.

"It's an excellent opportunity for our students to display projects and to get them hands-on experience," Welker said. "It gives them a lot of pride and rewards what they have been doing."

King said teachers make sure every entry is fair quality, so every FFA member who enters gets at least a white ribbon. Sometimes the students beat out the adults in open competition.

Although the number of farmers keeps diminishing, enrollment in FFA keeps rising, Welker said. The opportunity to get hands-on experience farming opens doors to other jobs in agribusiness -- at banks, in government, doing research.

Welker pointed to a display prepared by horticulture students with tropical plants arranged around an artificial waterfall. That was put together by FFA members.

"It's kind of neat to come back every year and see what's new," Welker said.