Before I retired from NC State University one of the courses I taught was AEE 507 Comparative Agricultural and Extension Education. This course was taught during the summer and involved chartering a bus, loading it up with agriculture teachers and extension agents, and traveling through neighboring states to learn more about agricultural and extension programs in those states. One year we would head south, then west in another year, and then north east the next year. We called the course the “Road Scholars” trip. It was interesting to see the growing interaction between the ag teachers and extension agents as the week progressed.
I always enjoyed our trips through Delaware. It is a picturesque, tidy state and has a surprising amount of agriculture. In this week’s Footnote we will visit Delaware.
Delaware was the 37th state to affiliate with the national FFA in 1930. Their charter application can be viewed online. In 2021-22 there were 38 FFA chapters in Delaware with 3,251 FFA members. The website for the Delaware FFA is https://delawareffa.org/.
Who Would You Want to Hear Speak?
In 1932 the list of speakers who were to talk at a meeting involving agriculture teachers in Milton, Delaware was announced. The topics being discussed give us some insight into the issues of the day back then. However, some of the topics are just as relevant today as they were 90 years ago. M. L. Mowlds, the Delaware state supervisor was to talk about “How an Average Vocational Agriculture Teacher Should Spend His Time Per Month.” Personally, I would like to hear Mr. Price from Laurel speak about “How to Handle Pupils of Varying I. Qs. In the Same Class During Various Types of Class Work.” Read the article (Figure 1) and decide who you would like to hear speak. I wish we had copies of these speeches.
Figure 1. The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware), February 11, 1932.
The Impact of World War II on Agriculture in Delaware
Teaching agriculture during World War II was a challenge. Agriculture teachers and their students were expected to keep the farm machinery repaired and in operation. Students were encouraged to have large SAE projects that were needed for the war effort. Agriculture teachers were involved in the Victory Farm Volunteers for their local area which meant agriculture teacher was responsible for matching the young people with farmers who needed help. These activities are described in a newspaper article published in 1943 (Figure 2).
Figure 2. The Morning News, Wilmington, Delaware, September 6, 1943
Let’s Go Fishing
Many agriculture teachers have an affinity for the great outdoors. In 1963 nineteen Delaware agriculture teachers caught 700 fish in a workshop sponsored by the State Game and Fish Commission. The purpose of the workshop was to “indoctrinate the instructors in wildlife conservation.” The teachers took classes on common trees and shrubs, identification of common songbirds, firearm safety, common game birds and animals and the farm pond. They were also exposed to educational materials for classroom use. See Figure 3 for more details.
Figure 3. The Morning News, Wilmington, Delaware, July 4, 1963
Farm to School to Table
The article about the William Penn High School Agricultural Education program written by the State Secretary of Agriculture doesn’t really do justice to the program (See Figure 5). William Penn High School partnered with the Trustees of New Castle Common (a 100 acre farm adjacent to the school) to lease land for the school’s agriculture and culinary arts program in 2003. It should be noted the farm is in an urban area where students have little contact with agriculture.
The students grow vegetables and fruit on the farm. They also have bees and a pollinator garden. Goats and chicken are in residence. The plant science students manage all aspects of the vegetable and fruit production. The nutrition services department of the school serves the fresh produce and processes the surplus. Culinary students also use the produce in their program. Fifty percent of the food produced is served to the students in the school district. The school also operates a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and has an apprentice program.
The You Tube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQATccKwd44&t=49s), the WPHS Penn Farm Facebook site (https://www.facebook.com/WPPennFarm) and the recent article (pages 30-35) in FFA New Horizons (https://www.calameo.com/read/005107524b53f10901033) more fully tells the story about this unique school program.
Figure 4. William Penn High School agricultural students. Photos from their Facebook page.
Figure 5 The News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware, November 15, 2015
FFA Egg Tossing & Soybean Spitting
It’s not everyday that a FFA member gets to compete against the governor of the state in an egg tossing contest and wins. But that is what happened at the Delaware State Fair in 1998. Ashley Peebles and her partner topped the governor. Ashley is quite the athlete winning the soybean spitting contest at the fair the previous year. In the article below Ashley is face-to-face with a watermelon even though she was Delaware Peach Queen that year.
Ashley was a FFA member at Caesar Rodney High School and was chapter president her senior year. She later served as the collegiate FFA chapter president at Delaware State University.
So what is Ashley doing today? Her last name is now Melvin and she is in her 20th year with the Delaware Department of Agriculture, Forestry Service as an Environmental Educator. She coordinates the annual Forestry CDE in Delaware and serves on the National FFA Forestry CDE Committee. She attributes all of this to her involvement with ag-science and the FFA. She will receive the Honorary American FFA degree along with the Delaware governor and one other from Delaware at the upcoming National FFA Convention. Say hi to her if you see her.
Figure 6 The News Journal, Wilmington, Delaware, July 31, 1998
Concluding Remarks
In 1934 L. L. Scranton published Fun and Work for Future Farmers. Scranton was the FFA advisor for North Dakota. This 249 page book contained a wide assortment of examples of fun and serious activities conducted by FFA chapters from across the country. It is interesting to look at the myriad of activities in which FFA chapters were engaged.
As I work on this series of state Friday Footnotes, I am experiencing what Scranton must have experienced. It is interesting and educational to see what FFA chapters and agricultural educators across the country have done in the past and are doing at the present. Even though we have many commonalities, we also have unique and diverse stories to tell. There are several examples of that in this Footnote.
Philosopher George Santayana stated “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” My rewrite of this statement is “Those who cannot remember the past may be missing some great ideas and opportunities.” I keep finding neat ideas of agricultural education/FFA activities from the various states that are worth emulating today.
A challenge I face when writing the Friday Footnote is that I discover information that I was not looking for. This leads me to what some people call “down the rabbit hole” which means I get interested in something else to the point of distraction – usually by accident and then go search for additional information on that topic. In this Footnote the phrases “Rural War Production Training Program” and “Victory Farm Volunteers” caught my attention. So, at some future date you will see a Friday Footnote about each of these subjects.