Daily Press Writer
OLATHE — It’s been 75 years since Olathe resident “Prof” Ralph Wilson went to Kansas City, Mo. to help form a national organization. Today, the Olathe Future Farmers of America chapter is still thriving with 57 members.
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Noel is in his third year of FFA at Olathe High School and was an executive committee member this year. He was inaugurated as vice president at the chapter’s awards banquet Friday night in Olathe.
“There are so many in town and in the valley that are involved in some kind of agriculture,” he said. “It surrounds all of us.”
In 1917, interest arose for agricultural classes in the public schools and the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917 created the Federal Board for Vocational Education. One of the board’s objectives was promoting agriculture training in secondary schools. It was funded by federal grants that were matched by state and local contributions.
“This started agricultural classes in high school,” Olathe FFA Advisor Joe Livingston said.
In 1928, Wilson, along with two high school students, joined representatives from 17 other states in Missouri to form a national FFA program that would continue in schools from Alaska to Puerto Rico and Maine to Hawaii.
“They then came back and started it in Colorado,” Livingston said.
Olathe farmer and rancher Duain Cox was in attendance Friday night and remembers when he was in FFA from 1946 to 1950.
“Back then FFA was very important,” he said. “It was an ag community.”
He said the area grew alfalfa, corn, pinto beans, sugar beats and Mehrabian barley, which was used by Adolph Coors Company.
He attends the awards banquet every year to show support for the chapter.
“It teaches life skills,” he said. “Look at these youngsters now and you see the difference. They got their pants pulled up and don’t have holes in their jeans. They are fine-cut young gentlemen — and ladies.”
When he was a member, girls were not allowed to join FFA.
In fact, it wasn’t until 1969 and two failed attempts to pass a resolution, that a vote passed to allow full membership rights and benefits to women, according to the Department of Agriculture’s Web site.
At the national level, 38 percent of members are women and they hold more than 47 percent of state leadership positions.
“I’m glad they did fight (for women’s membership), because if we didn’t have the rights we have today, I wouldn’t understand parliamentary procedures and have the leadership qualities I possess,” two-year member Marlana Distel said.
The program is not just about agriculture, said FFA president Kyle Martinez, who handed over his gavel Friday night. “There are so many more things than that.”
To reflect an evolving program, the organization changed its name in 1988 from Future Farmers of America to the National FFA Organization. According it its Web site, it wanted to express that the program encompassed not just agriculture, but also science, business and technology.
Livingston said the program provides leadership skills, promotes cooperation and career development, and everything from academics and community service is geared toward those three things.
“We’re all part of something that is very big — and very much about leadership,” Noel said. “The organization promotes leadership, good grades and (a) strong being.”
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