FFA at 90 Years Old

Patrick Heaps and his granddaughter reflect on their membership in Future Farmers of America

Standing in a wooded area on part of the farm he grew up on in western Perry County, Patrick Heaps shows his granddaughter, Elizabeth Plunkett, two plaques from 1968. One commemorates his first-place win in the Missouri FFA competition for his forestry Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) project. The other plaque celebrates his second-place finish in the United States regional competition. His granddaughter, Elizabeth Plunkett, is wearing her own FFA T-shirt and has never seen the plaques before.

Plunkett, a rising junior at Perryville High School, is following in her grandfather�s footsteps, and has some impressive FFA credentials herself: during her first year in FFA as a freshman, her ducks won the grand champion award at the East Perry Fair in Altenburg, Missouri, and she went to state for the poultry competition. As a sophomore, Plunkett also competed at the state level for entomology. In addition, she competed as one of the top 16 FFA speakers in the state, where she spoke about desalination. During this school year, she will serve as the reporter for the Perryville High School FFA chapter.

She dons her blue corduroy FFA jacket; Heaps wonders what ever happened to his.

�I don�t think it would fit me anymore,� he jokes.

Family farms and agriculture are an important part of Perry County�s heritage, and FFA has been a staple extracurricular activity at Perryville High School since 1934. Starting with 32 members, the club has grown to include 115 students from the area, during the 2017-2018 school year.

Patrick Heaps and his granddaughter, Elizabeth Plunkett, spend time in the woods in Perry County, Missouri.Fred Lynch ~ Southeast Missourian

Heaps and Plunkett are one grandfather-granddaughter duo who have had multiple generations participate in FFA.

The Farm

Before his retirement, Heaps served as Perry County commissioner for 12 years, as well as the treasurer and chairman of the Southeast Missouri Solid Waste District. He is currently the lieutenant of the Rural Fire District in Perry County.

Heaps� father bought the farm Heaps grew up on by Port Perry in 1950. He then bought two other nearby farms, totaling 712 acres on which the family raised black angus cattle, hogs and chickens and grew corn and made hay. Heaps and his brother made spending money by milking their cows, selling eggs and cutting wood. It was these endeavors that led him to join FFA as a high school freshman and remain a member all four years of his high school career. Heaps most enjoyed the chance to work with his hands and have access to tools in the shop through FFA.

Patrick Heaps shows his granddaughter, Elizabeth Plunkett, the FFA awards he received in high school.FRED LYNCH ~ flynch@semissourian.com

�I loved the shop,� Heaps recalls. �We built gates, brought them home, put them on. Or you could build a trailer � anything that you could use on the farm � and the shop had all the stuff that we didn�t have back then on the farm. Farmers now have everything � big shops, welders � but we didn�t have that back in these hill farms. We had it back in our shop [at school], so we learned how to weld and skills in building in FFA.�

Heaps lives on 81 acres of the farm he grew up on. He bought it in 2009 and still does forestry there, working the timber, cutting trails through the farm and cultivating food plots for wildlife.

Growing up, Plunkett says she spent a lot of time at her grandpa�s farm; she then became interested in FFA during a career day at the high school while in the eighth grade. For her SAE project, Plunkett is running a poultry production, raising laying hens and selling approximately 60 free-range eggs per day.

Plunkett�s experience as a member of FFA is something she enjoys sharing with her grandpa.

�To connect a bridge between me and my grandpa that my parents never did [since they weren�t in FFA], it kind of brings us closer,� she says.

FFA�s Roots

The Future Farmers of America organization has been around for 90 years, seeing our country through many different eras and evolving with the changing times. The organization began in 1928 when 33 caucasian farm boys from 18 states gathered at the American Royal Livestock Show in Kansas City, Missouri, to create an organization that would cultivate their pride in being from a farm. The organization was modeled off a similar organization founded three years earlier called Future Farmers of Virginia, to keep the many young men who were leaving their family farms invested in agriculture.

In 1935, New Farmers of America (NFA) began in Tuskegee, Alabama, for African-American farm youth. The organization also was modeled off the Future Farmers of Virginia, and 13 states had chapters. The NFA and FFA integrated 30 years later in 1965, coming together over their shared beliefs and common goals related to agriculture.

By a vote at the 1930 national convention, women were denied membership into FFA. While many state associations granted young women entry into the organization before, it was not until 1969 that women gained full FFA membership privileges. Today, young women make up 45 percent of FFA membership and half of all state leadership positions. Nationwide, there are now more than 653,000 students in grades 7-12 in FFA, with 8,658 chapters in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

FFA also has expanded to include many different areas of interest related to agriculture, including floriculture, horticulture, entomology, forestry, speaking events, sales and many more.

Their Experiences

Heaps, who was in FFA from 1964 to 1968, remembers when there were no girls in the organization at Perryville High School.

�Back then it was boys, and it was mostly farm boys off the farm,� he says. �Now you don�t have to be off of a farm; you can live in the city of Perryville and get interested [in FFA].�

He appreciates the broader range of offerings the club now provides.

�When I was younger, you were either involved in cattle, hogs, dairy cattle or field crops,� Heaps says. �The speaking competition wasn�t even around then. That�s how far it�s come and branched out, and that�s what I like about it. It�s come a long way.�

Plunkett agrees.

�Now it�s a broad band of people,� she says. �We have people from all sorts of clubs and different backgrounds of life joining FFA because there are so many different competitions you can do, there are so many different SAEs.�

Plunkett says students in FFA today have opportunities not only to learn about the many facets of agriculture in the classroom, but also to compete in contests, attend speaking academies and go to banquets to learn about world problems.

One thing throughout the years has remained the same: FFA is a commitment to creating the future of agriculture in our country.

�It teaches young kids skills and a lot of heritage,� Heaps says. �Because a lot of our heritage is farming. Perry County has basically been a farming community.�

He is also happy to pass this heritage on to his granddaughter through FFA.

�I�m glad FFA stuck around,� he says. �I�m glad to see Elizabeth in it. It makes me proud.�