New FFA chapter chartered

MONTICELLO, Minn. — In an increasingly urban Minnesota school district, an FFA chapter has been reborn. With it, three local dairy farms have become beneficiaries through chapter officers who are part-time employees.

During the Minnesota FFA Convention, April 28-29 in the Twin Cities, Monticello FFA will receive its charter. John Payne, chapter president, Lea Hanson, vice president, and Elliot Sala, secretary, are among those attending and competing in Career Development Events.

The newly formed chapter has no members from dairy farms, but Payne, Hanson and Sala will all have cows to milk before and after the trip. Payne works for Krause Holsteins near Buffalo, Sala works for New-Vue Ayrshires near Maple Lake, and Hanson works both for New-Vue and also Abel Dairy near Monticello.

Their teacher and FFA adviser, Jacob Wilts, also spends some of his mornings before school working at Green Waves Dairy near St. Michael.

Monticello’s FFA disappeared in the 1980s, but efforts by students like Payne and Hanson led the district to allocate a half-time teacher and several agriculture, food and natural resource classes, and charter a new FFA chapter. Plans are in place for a full-time teaching and advising position next fall.

Wilts, who graduated from Monticello High School during the time FFA did not exist there, moved from the Buffalo school district to fill the adviser position. He credits seniors like Payne, Hanson and Sala with bringing back FFA to Monticello.

“This whole senior class (of FFA members) had been asking why we couldn’t have FFA,” Wilts said. “They made the case that if the school wanted something to prepare students for real life, FFA was it.”

Soon after the FFA was established, Lea Hanson overheard a conversation about dairy farms looking for help milking cows. Her longtime interest was horses, but she was anxious to leave a hospital job to be closer to animals, and dairy fit the bill.

She now milks 65 cows in a tiestall barn at Abel Dairy, and 30 cows in a double-6 parlor at New-Vue Ayrshires.

“It’s hard work, but it’s worth it,” Hanson said. “I like learning. Just today we saw what the inside of a milker looks like when it had to be fixed.”

Hanson recruited fellow FFA member Sala for dairy farm work.

“I really, really needed to find a job,” Sala said. “This is probably the favorite job I’ve had.”

Sala’s current employer had reduced his hours, which gave getting the job on the dairy urgency.

Sala lives in town and shows sheep in 4-H. He said the hardest part of milking cows is the occasional kick.

“It’s hard to know which cows are which; they all look the same,” he said. “One time I had to call Lea at 6:30 a.m. to ask a question.”

For Payne, working part time at Krause Dairy was an extension of his previous experience with beef cattle and something different than his four years working at the Pizza Factory in Big Lake.

“I’d never really worked in dairy,” he said. “I really like being able to see new farm operations.”

At the dairy, Payne milks and takes care of calves, mainly on weekends.

Wilts, who supervises the school’s on-the-job training program for the other half of his teaching appointment, knows how to evaluate the dairy jobs of his students.

Wilts’ work at Green Waves Dairy was full time after he graduated from South Dakota State University during the coronavirus pandemic, when jobs were hard to find. He had worked at the dairy as a student, and Mark Berning at Green Waves offered him more hours while he waited for teaching jobs to open.

All three of the student dairy farm workers are headed off to college soon — Hanson to Montana for equine studies, Sala to South Dakota State University for animal science and Payne to Lake Superior College for aviation — potentially creating openings on the dairies where they now work.

Their fellow FFA members may be a source of replacements.

“I’m already recruiting,” Hanson said. “I can get someone trained in.”