With school called off last Wednesday and Thursday when Wessington Springs FFA members had planned their events for FFA Week, instead of saying all is lost, they quickly sprung into action to reschedule and spill FFA Week into this Tuesday through Thursday.
Hundreds of community members, students, school staff and teachers flocked to the vo-ag shop at Wessington Springs High School (WSHS) for “Pancakes in the Shop” Tuesday morning. On Wednesday, the chapter is hosting a hamburger feed for Members and on Thursday the entire student body will enjoy Ag Olympics. FFA members head to Redfield on Friday for a Career Develpoment Event (CDE), the first one of the season.
History of blazing a path
Over a decade before FFA was founded on a national level in 1928, Delbert Shryock (uncle of longtime vo-ag teacher Craig Shryock) formed the Wessington Springs vo-ag program in 1916. According to a 1968 article in The Wessington Springs Independent, “Shryock recalled having set up a vocational agriculture program in 1915, when he came to Wessington Springs to teach. But it was not until the following year in 1916, that he returned from summer school armed with credentials and accreditation to qualify the program for recognition and support under the Smith-Hughes Act.”
According to Jerauld County history book, The Making of a Community, “Shryock, a member of one of A.B. Smart’s ‘temperance colony’ families, homesteaded himself near Newell, SD where he built a sod home, returned to ‘The Springs’ to coach the area’s first basketball and football teams, started vo-ag in public school, raised registered collie cattle dogs and pursued a natural talent as a horticulturalist.”
Bright future ahead
Playing an integral part in the education piece of the newly launched “Beef to School” program
chapter members and advisor Brady Duxbury is forging ahead with not only educating about locally produced beef, but also seeking funds to begin a meat processing plant within the current vo-ag shop.
Look to upcoming editions of theTrueDakotanforinformation on this Friday’s CDE, FFA Week events and the exciting future of meat processing vo-ag education at WSHS.
