Talawanda FFA

Jack Jacquemin and Dan Zimmerman have experience to spare.

See how they keep Talawanda’s FFA program running strong.

Assessing change in a school program can be difficult. With the average person changing jobs at least a few times, instructors often cannot accurately judge how things were twenty years ago.

This is not the case for Dan Zimmerman and Jack Jacquemin, satellite Future Farmers of America, or FFA, instructors at Talawanda High School. Zimmerman is in his 30th year of teaching, all of which have been at Talawanda, and Jacquemin is in his 28th year. Jacquemin has spent the past 15 years at Talawanda and prior to that was at Lakota High School.

According to the national FFA website, the mission of FFA programs is to, “make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education.”

The Talawanda FFA program is 135 students strong in a high school whose enrollment is just under 900 students. The program is actually not funded by Talawanda Schools and is instead a satellite program of the Butler Technology and Career Development Schools.

The Butler Technology and Career Development Schools is a vocational type school that serves all students in Butler County. Therefore it supports vocational type programs at Butler County schools.

“They pay our bills and our salaries, so we are employed by Butler Tech and teach here as a satellite program,” Jacquemin said.

Of these 135 students in the Future Farmers of America, Zimmerman says that perhaps three would consider farming full-time after school.

“As far as dyed in the wool, this is all I’m going to do to earn my living farmers, there just aren’t too many of them,” Zimmerman said.

This is nothing recent. Jacquemin left the Lakota High School program after dwindling numbers forced the program to shutdown.

But the two instructors have adapted to the changes well. Even at the early hour in which I conduct my interview, their office is a flurry of activity.

Students come in to start their morning by checking in with Zimmerman and Jacquemin. A student whose faces a tardy to class, comes in and talks Zimmerman into signing a note for him. One gets the feeling the student has done this before.

Another student comes in to try her luck at getting a bottle of Sunny D from the instructor’s private stash. She leaves empty handed.

The office is also busy preparing for their annual Alumni Consignment Sale, a great fund-raiser for the program, though one that requires a lot of preparation. However, one gets the feeling that with a combined 58 years of experience, Zimmerman and Jacquemin have perfected their methods.

FFA programs have a diverse curriculum. Areas of instruction range from the industrial arts to woodworking to most areas of the sciences.

“There are only two colleges left in Ohio that train industrial arts teachers,” Zimmerman said. In the age of the computer, the skill of tearing apart a lawn mower in the garage and putting it back together has been replaced with tearing apart the home PC.

“We’re the only class that teaches anything about engines in the school, the only one who does anything with metal working,” Zimmerman said.

So with the possibility of farming as a profession falling by the wayside, what keeps kids interested in FFA?

“So all that is a draw,” Zimmerman says, “Also, we have a real strong 4H in this county.”

Zimmerman says that being around these kids when they are showing livestock at the fair gives them a good opportunity to recruit.

“They’ve worked with animals for a long time, and they see our program as a continuation of that,” Zimmerman explained.

While the two might seem set in their ways, everyone involved with FFA has had to adapt, including the FFA itself.
The FFA awards “degrees” to its members on two different levels, state and national. The degrees are considered prestigious to win and reward the students with recognition at state and national FFA conventions. The degrees are earned through completion of projects. The projects might be something like raising a few acres of corn or starting your own lawn care business. Projects for things like raising corn are considered production, whereas things like lawn care are considered business.

“They changed the degrees,” Jacquemin explained.

“Instead of taking like the top 2% (of entrants for state degrees) they now take everyone who meets a set of minimum requirements,” Jacquemin said.

Jacquemin explained that it used to be that a student from a poorer district could complete all the requirements, but would have to compete against a student who had access to more resources and could do more with the project.

With all the extra things that FFA incorporates, working towards degrees, participating on competition teams, and learning mechanical skills, the classes tend to come together in a sense of community.

“It’s a bit of a freer atmosphere,” Zimmerman said. “It’s a different kind of class. Sometimes it’s hard to get them to sit down and act like a regular class.”

“We have a big school district size wise and we get a lot of different kinds of kids,” Zimmerman said. “Sometimes it can be difficult to get everyone to work together.”

It helps that specific classes are subdivided as electives for the students. Students interested in welding can take a semester class that focuses solely on welding and metal, carpentry, or small engines; in addition to taking the general FFA classes.

“Something like welding class would drive me crazy if I had to teach five classes of it,” Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman and Jacquemin don’t strike me as the types that are going to go crazy anytime soon. Instead I get the impression that the Talawanda FFA program is right where it wants to be, in experienced hands that are well suited to guide the program through ever changing waters.

Talawanda High School can be accessed through the Web at http://www.talawanda.net. Butler Technology and Career Development Schools’ online address is http://www.butlertech.org.