MISSOULA — Big Sky High School offers a unique program for Future Farmers of America (FFA) that teaches agricultural and leadership skills.
Now, a total of 24 students from Big Sky are heading to Billings for the FFA state competition.
The Big Sky High School agricultural program teaches students the ins and outs of working in Ag while also teaching them valuable lessons along the way.
“Most of our students aren’t agriculturalists they’re probably not gonna go out and be agriculturalists,” Ag program teacher Cindy Arnott said. “What we’re hoping to help them develop is leadership skills, we want them to be informed consumers that understand the process from farm to fork and how their food gets to the table that food doesn’t come from a grocery store.”
The students learn these necessary skills by taking a hands-on approach to agriculture.
Big Sky High School FFA member Mary Cate Nage says she fell in love with the program after working with the live animals during her freshman year.
"It takes a lot of patience," Nage said. “The amount of patience it takes — I started with hogs and they are not on a lead. You have to be able to move them while they’re kind of just running free. And so, it takes a lot of patience teaching them because if you get mad they’re not going to learn anything and so you really have to be patient."
While most of the learning from this program is done on the farm or in the classroom, Ag program student AJ Sharkey says the competition held throughout the year is a great teacher as well.
“Seeing your skillsets put up against other people’s really helps you see where you are and how you would improve,” Sharkey said. “There’s a lot of kids here that go to these contests and they’re not very happy with, ‘oh I didn’t do well in these contests,’ in reality they’ve learned an incredible amount about these different contests and skillsets and it’s really just about the learning aspect.”
The students leave for the state competition in Billings on Monday, April 1, 2024.
