Lee Pulaski, lpulaski@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Lee Pulaski Adam Bartz, right, helps Chase Henning to park a tractor at Shawano Community High School on Wednesday. Henning borrowed the tractor from Bartz’s family. Nine Shawano FFA members drove their tractors to school in recognition of National Ag Day, organized by the Agriculture Council of America.
Leader Photo by Lee Pulaski Five tractors were already parked at Shawano Community High School as the sun came up early Wednesday. Nine Shawano FFA members drove their tractors to school in recognition of National Ag Day, organized by the Agriculture Council of America.
Tractors are a fairly common sight along Shawano County’s roads, but not the sort of vehicle one tends to find in the Shawano Community High School parking lot.
However, nine Shawano FFA members left their cars and trucks at home Wednesday in favor of their John Deeres, Kubotas and Case Internationals.
The students drove their tractors to school in observance of National Ag Day, which is a chance for farmers, agricultural associations, government agencies and other entities to put a spotlight on where people’s food comes from.
“We wanted to create more of an awareness about our farmers and what they do each and every day,” said Missy Braun, FFA adviser at SCHS.
The Shawano FFA had previously designated a day — usually in the late spring — for some of its members to bring their tractors to school as a reminder of the area’s agriculture heritage, but the tradition had been on hiatus for several years. The idea re-emerged when the local chapter started planning its National FFA Week festivities, which were in February.
“We’re seeing more students that are coming from the farms and becoming more involved in our FFA and our (agriculture) classes,” Braun said. “It was kind of cold in February, but we didn’t want to do that random drive your tractor to school day, so we looked ahead and I saw there was an ag day in March. It gave us another month to start warming up.”
The students took the lead in coordinating the event, making sure to get approval from school administrators and setting up rules, such as requiring slow-moving vehicle signs on the tractors and making sure they took up no more than two parking spaces.
Other students were also interested in participating but failed to sign up before the deadline, indicating to Braun that, if the FFA holds the event next year, it will be bigger.
Sophomore Kasey Kristof, one of the coordinators of the event, said having the tractors at the school helped enlighten his friends and classmates as to how many students come from farms and work daily on those farms. Kristof drove a 2010 John Deere from Belle Plaine to SCHS.
“My grandma and grandpa owned a farm, and it was passed on to my uncle, and I’m always there (on the farm),” Kristof said.
Freshman Brett Ainsworth, another student coordinator, said he remembered how his older brother, Dustin, participated in the tractor drive years ago and how Dustin was disappointed that it fell by the wayside in recent years. Ainsworth drove a 2008 John Deere to school Wednesday from his family’s farm in Waukechon.
“It was pretty fun,” Ainsworth said of the trip that started before sunrise. “I had a whole lot of cars behind me in the passing zone, but they wanted to stay behind me. They could have passed, but they didn’t.”
Senior Chase Henning did not have his own tractor, so he borrowed a John Deere from his friend, Adam Bartz, who rolled into the school on a Kubota.
“The FFA told us about it, and we had a couple of tractors, so we figured we’d just do it,” Bartz said.