As reported in High Plains Journal, you can hear how proud Mark Hager is of his students in his voice.
Hager is in his first year of teaching agriculture and chartering an FFA chapter at Ingalls, Kansas, after being at a number of schools throughout his nearly 20-year teaching career.
“We’re brand new,” he said. “We just chartered this year.”
Hager has 48 students in seventh through 12th grades.
“We had a big charter signing ceremony this fall at one of the football games. State officers came down, and I was just hired this school year to start the chapter,” he said.
Hager is no stranger to FFA. His own father was an FFA advisor and 4-H agent. He taught in Oklahoma and later started a chapter at Herington, Kansas, and was there for seven years before moving on to Dighton and Ness City for three more years.
It’s quite a process to get a chapter started—pathway paperwork has to be approved by the state, the school district must offer agricultural education classes and on to approval by state and national FFA.
Ingalls FFA has a full slate of seven officers, along with great community and parent support.
“Ingalls is a wonderful place,” he said. “I just can’t believe they haven’t had agriculture education and FFA before.”
Hager said when he was hired the superintendent and principal requested an active chapter. They didn’t want to have an FFA chapter just to have one.
“We’re trying to be active. We’re trying to do the best that we can,” he said. “And the kids have been amazing and the community has been amazing.”
Hager has nothing but praise for his students.
“My students are amazing,” Hager said. “I have some of the best students. I’ll put my students up against anybody in the country with their work ethic.”
The kids want to do well and are good, according to their advisor.
“They go out and work hard and it’s a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s fun for an old ag teacher to get motivated.”
Hager believes success breeds success and thinks since his students have been winning and placing at land judging, dairy judging and horse judging contests, that they have a desire to win.
“The kids are all gung ho. They want to win,” he said. “We’ve got those plaques up already. They displayed them in the school office. That’s their goal now to get some medals and win a plaque.”
His students are having fun and it’s been rewarding for them, Hager said.
“It’s like the football coach told me; we didn’t have a great football season. He said, ‘Man, once you guys started winning in FFA, they came back and they were trying harder in football.’ Winning breeds winning.”
Hager’s student’s have had the opportunity to participate is so many different leadership activities and career development events. He sees the need for those experiences to help the students later on in their lives.
“I come from a family of five children—my dad was an ag teacher then a 4-H agent. So we pretty much didn’t have a choice growing up we were in FFA,” he said. “Out of five kids, only two of us went into the agriculture field.”
His older brothers and older sister went into the corporate world and Hager says they will tell you learning how to be public speakers and decision making came from going to and participating in FFA contests.
“You don’t have to go into traditional farming. You don’t have to go into even an agricultural business job to get the benefits from FFA and agriculture education because it teaches you so many life skills,” he said.
Hager teaches his students the finer points of job interviews and making a resume, along with teaching financial recordkeeping.
