Ag awarded

Jay County FFA has been honored as a 3 Star chapter each of the last two years.

Now the educators who lead Jay County High School’s agriculture program have been honored as well.

Indiana Association of Agricultural Educators recently named the JCHS agriculture program the top program in the state.

“It feels really good to be nominated by your peers,” said Melissa Wolters, the senior member of the school’s agriculture teaching staff that also includes Brittany Kloer, Cody Linville and Seth Swallow, before passing on credit to her students. “We have a great group of hard-working kids. I’ve never met so many high school kids who want to have a job and work so hard.”

The Jay County program was initially nominated for the award by its fellow educators in its Indiana Association of Agricultural Educators district, which covers, Adams, Blackford, Wells, Huntington, Wabash and Grant counties in addition to Jay. They then had to fill out an application highlighting the various aspects of what they do to advance agricultural education.

A committee of teachers and Indiana Association of Agricultural Educators officers then reviewed the nominee applications and chose the JCHS program as the winner, qualifying it to compete for National Association of Agricultural Educators award.

Jay County’s application focused heavily on its dedication to community service.

The program teams up with Portland Lion’s Club each year to host the Hot Cakes for Cold Kids coat drive. It has also recently partnered with the City of Portland to take care of downtown planters.

It’s “important to instill in kids at a young age to give back to the community because we are all in this together,” said Kloer. “Our students feel empowered when they can see their efforts making a difference in their communities.”

Looking at the team of teachers, Wolters, compared them to the wheels of a car — each just as important as they other in getting to the destination. She noted their complementary skills — Linville as the expert in contests and public speaking skills, Kloer the organizer who helps students apply for grants and focus on their future, Swallow the analytical one who pushes students to think at a higher level and herself the “mother hen” who has taught a variety of courses she would not have expected.

Colton Prescott, a 2010 JCHS graduate who is now an agriculture teacher at Winchester High School, noted the importance of the variety of experiences that are available in the program. Those include the greenhouse, welding shop, agriculture construction classes and animal labs.

“I think it’s a top-notch program,” said Prescott, who graduated from Purdue University in 2014 and filled in for Wolters during her maternity leave in 2016-17. “There’s just so many different things that kinds have had the opportunity to do.”

He’s even implemented one of Jay County’s fixtures — the work member auction — in his own program at Winchester. It allows students to donate eight hours at a time to work in a variety of capacities, raising tens of thousands of dollars each year.

Prescott added that in addition to the efforts of the teaching staff, community support — from individuals, businesses, the school administration, The Portland Foundation and others — is key to the success of the program.

Students that have followed in their footsteps — in addition to Prescott, 2012 JCHS graduate Shelbi Louck is an agriculture teacher at Blackford High School and four students will be studying agriculture education at Purdue this fall — are another point of pride for Wolters, Linville, Louck and Swallow.

“When you have that many students that want to follow in your footsteps,” Wolters said, “it’s a great feeling.”