Steve Skelonc Memorial - Drive Your Tractor to School Day

The first annual Steve Skelonc memorial Drive Your Tractor to School Day takes place tomorrow. Brent Willett, Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources, Career & Technical Education, Educator and FFA Advisor joins us to discuss the importance of this event. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A big benefit for the Cedar Springs Public Schools. FFA
chapter postponed because of this rotten weather. But let's raise
a little awareness and maybe even some money for this thing.
This is West Michigan's Morning New Steve Kelly and Brett Makita.
You're in Cedar Springs tomorrow. You're going to see some
tractors around the high school. And Brett Willett is the Agriculture,

(00:21):
Food and Natural Resources career and technical education educator. And
oh yeah, by the way, the FFA advisor when he's
not driving a bus. Thank you so much for joining
us today, Brent in between jobs.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yes, thanks for having me so talk to us.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
About the big event tomorrow. What do we need to
know about FFA in the first place.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well, FSA is a once a national organization youth organization
in the United States. It's used to be Future Farmers
of America. We've since changed our name nationally just the
National Bay Organization because agriculture encompasses more than just farmers.
So that's the first and foremost thing that we want
to get out there.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
So what kind of a do we have going on
to support this? I know there is actually a way
for the community to donate today, right, even though some
events have been moved to tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, so some of our events today will be at
Culver's cover scoops of banks, which runs from ten thirty
to closing today. And we also have our donate while
you dine at Culver's and Cedar Springs from five to
eight pm as well, until percentage of your dining experience
gets donated back to FFA. And that scoops of Thanks
for every dollar scoop of either Vanilla chocolate or how

(01:31):
NIW Browncow directly benefits our program.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
And now it is a memorial drive, and I want
you to talk about Steve a little bit and the
history here with Cedar Springs High School in nineteen sixty
seven graduate. I grew up in Rockford. Agriculture was a
big part of Rockford before it exploded with all the
housing and stuff, just like Cedar and Sparta, And obviously
Steve was pretty special the Cedar Springs community.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, Steve was a local dairy farmer, amazing guy, you know.
He graduated, yeah, sixty seven, sixty nine somewhere in there.
He was our uh, he was one of the f
FA presidents at the time and all of his grandkids
went through our program. They were all very active and
I got the pleasure of working with them nieces and

(02:14):
nephews as well. And he was just he was just
a good guy. He always was at our events, supported
students and in career and technical education here and uh.
After he passed, he wanted any contributions that were made
to go back to our program, and a very large
contribution came back to us and and we said, well,

(02:35):
how can we honor Steve in these contributions? And you know,
we asked his wife, Marie, and she said, you know,
he loved tractor Day and so I brought that back
to our students and the students said, let's let's rename
tractor Day in memory of Steve. So that's what we did,
and it's just an awesome It's it's so cool to
me to see the youth, you know, come together and recognize,

(02:58):
you know, the importance of past general. I think that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
You know, Brent, you had mentioned that it's so much
more than farming now with agriculture. What are the students
in Cedar Springs learning? And I'm sure a lot of
them come from generations of farming and I think it's
really incredible to see them want to continue that very
necessary work.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, so our students start actually from a biological approach here,
so we were looking at the biology of farming, you know,
to start, because science is farming, So we start there,
and then our kids venture into environmental and natural resources.
They're working with Ducks Unlimited. We're doing forest and ecosystem management,

(03:41):
and we move into greenhouse production and nursery production, and
then by their juniors and senior years, we're actually looking at,
you know, what does it mean to be a leader,
And then we're getting into more of the animal and
career sides of agriculture and the marketing side of agriculture,
all of which you know, is not just being a farmer.
So it's really a cool program that encompasses every piece

(04:05):
of egg, food and natural resources.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
So it's the Steve Scalonic Memorial Drive your tractor's school day.
Well schedule for today, but due to the weather postponting
it to tomorrow, and another the part I wanted to
bring up and maybe Smedilell have it or traffic reports
tomorrow is be careful out there because there's gonna be
a lot of kids and a lot of people driving
different sized vehicles that yes, are on the roadway, but
not going to be going as fast as normal cars,

(04:28):
so slow down and respect around Cedar Springs High School.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Right, Yes, yes, we'll have over forty eight tractors, so
it'll be busy.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
How do you park there by the way? Are you
allowed to take up more than one space if you're
a senior? How does that work yet?

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Tomorrow? I don't think there's any of those a lot
taking that much.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
It's good to know. We'll talk about tomorrow, I'm sure. Agriculture,
Food and Natural Resources Career in Technical Education educator FFA
advisor at Cedar Springs High School, Brent Willet, thanks for
your time today.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yes, thank you very much. We appreciate it.