Can your students write a cohesive sentence or paragraph? If not, perhaps your state should have an FFA Essay Contest? Indiana does! It appears the Indiana FFA realized long ago that writing was an important skill for FFA members. I found mentions of this contest as far back as 1940.
An article in the Evansville Press dated April 7,1940 announced that William Reineke was the state winner of the FFA Essay Contest. This announcement was made at the state FFA convention the previous day. So, apparently Indiana had a state FFA essay contest as early as 1940, perhaps even earlier (See Figure 1.) A search of Newspapers.com found 109 mentions of the Indiana FFA state essay contest from 1940 through 2022. At times the winning essays were printed in the newspapers.
Figure 1. Evansville Press, April 7, 1940.
Perhaps the state FFA essay contest prepared Richard Howard for his accomplishment in the 1940 Goodyear Tire and Rubber company writing contest for 4-H and FFA members. Richard, from Brookville, Indiana won a 3-week long trip that included a week of fishing at a lodge in Canada for his essay.
Contestants in the national Goodyear essay writing contest had to reside on a farm, be in 4-H or the FFA, and had to be in high school. They had to write about “How Rubber Tires Have Changed Farm Equipment Methods.” Essays were submitted directly to the Goodyear Company. Prizes included all-expense paid trips, cash and other prizes. The deadline for entries in 1940 was May 15. See Figure 2.
Figure 2. Franklin Democrat, March 14, 1940.
Richard and a fellow classmate, Harold Beneker, won prizes in the 1940 Goodyear essay competition. Harold won $25 while Richard was a national grand prize winner. This was only the second time a school had a grand prize and runner up winner, both from Indiana. In 1939 two students from Moore’s Hill, Indiana duplicated the wins.
Richard first went to Akron, Ohio where he toured the Goodyear factories. Then it was off to Cleveland for a major league ball game, then to Michigan to tour an automobile factory. The next stop for Richard was Niagara Falls. From there Richard went to Lake Timagami in Canada and a week of fishing. What a trip for a farm boy from Brookville, Indiana. See Figure 3.
Figure 3. The Brookville Democrat, June 27, 1940
Some FFA Chapters in Indiana sponsored local essay writing contests. The Dubois FFA chapter in their annual report for 1961 printed in The Herald of Jasper, Indiana wrote (p. 11), “We endeavor to engage in the activities that will help develop leadership. We attend the special training schools developed for the officers and this year all members of the senior class wrote essays for the district FFA essay contest. We are proud of the trophy won by Jerome Schepers with his essay ‘The Farm Problem.’”
At one time in Indiana the essay contest was sponsored by the Indiana Farmer Magazine. In 1962 Jim Cherry of Hancock Central was the state winner. His essay was to be published in the Indiana Farmer Magazine. See Figure 4.
Figure 4. The Hancock Democrat, March 29, 1962.
In 1971 the Monrovia High School FFA sponsored a local essay writing contest. The top ten contestants were listed in The Reporter-Times newspaper of Martinsville. See Figure 5.
Figure 5. The Reporter-Times (Martinsville), May 3, 1971
If we fast forward to 2017 and 2018 we discover the Tractor Supply Company (TSC) launched the “Great Neighbor” Essay Contest for 4-H and FFA members in Indiana (and also in other states). Perhaps it took too much time to read the essays because in 2019 the “Great Neighbor” campaign called for students to submit a photo along with a 200 word description for the TSC “Good Neighbor” campaign.
Figure 6. Tipton County Tribune, April 9, 2018.
Concluding Remarks
The poor writing skills of today’s students have been making the headlines. A recent story in Newsday (January 26, 2024, p. A3) reported on a survey of local CEOs on Long Island. Seven of the ten local CEOs said job applicants had poor writing skills.
A 2022 opinion column in the Chicago Tribune written by Jerald McNair. a school administrator in Illinois, was repeated by newspapers across the county. Typically the headline was something like “Is texting eroding young people’s writing skills?” McNair describes how texting is negatively impacting the writing skills of our students. One sentence from the article states “Teachers have explained to me how often they have to correct basic words in their students’ writing because far too many of them use text language in place of formal English.”
Perhaps agriculture teachers need to put more emphasis on writing. While welding and potting plants is important, so is writing. I don’t remember if it was every Friday or Friday once a month, my high school agriculture teacher, Jack Lacy, required us to get an agricultural magazine from the magazine rack, read an article, and then write a one page essay about what we had read. Perhaps that is why I write so much today.
So what are you doing to help your students improve their writing? This Footnote might give you some ideas. You might want to check out the Indiana FFA essay contest writing rules at this link. While I am not a big fan of adding FFA contests without taking something away, this might be something the FFA should consider. Perhaps some civic minded business could sponsor it.
Speaking of writing, you will notice this Friday Footnote focused on one Indiana topic – the essay. When I started this state-oriented series of Footnotes a while back my plan was to try and capture the “essence” of agricultural education in each state with one Footnote. But that proved to be an impossible task because I kept discovering so much interesting information about each state. That is why some state Footnotes morphed into 2-3 parts.
So, my new plan is to write about what I consider to be a unique aspect of agricultural education/FFA in each state. This may still be 2-3 Footnotes per state, but the individual Footnotes should be shorter and take less of your time to read.