The Biggest Little Fair Around! -The Albion Fair

I have been to my fair share of fairs...from showing, to seeing fellow 4-H friends, to my lovely summer job of fair concession food. However, I have never even heard of the Albion fair until this year. It is true what they say: it really is the Biggest Little Fair Around.And unlike most of the fairs I've been to this one does not take place during mid to late summer. But that's okay because who doesn't wanna wear their parkas and Carhearts to the fair? That being said I wish I had brought my winter coat on my SAE visit to the Albion fair.

                          In case you were wondering why in the world I would even consider a winter coat in September check out the snowfall..I am pretty sure it snowed when I was there last weekend.

Check out all those trophies Robert
pictured below won with
his goat!

Coming from a FFA background I knew what an SAE visit entailed. I didn't know what it was like to be on the other end of the visit though. It was a great experience getting to see my students show off their projects they worked so hard on. I got to talk to two students who I will have this coming January about the animals they were showing at the Albion fair as part of their SAE project. I also got to see numerous other student's projects which was awesome seeing the diversity the Albion FFA has. 

Robert the Vice President of the Albion FFA is giving a 4-H member a ride in his cart pulled by the 4-H members goat in the parade! How awesome is that? I know I want one now

 In case you don't know what SAE is it stands for Supervised Agricultural Experience. Now where does a supervised agricultural experience fit in with teaching? Well in order to be a complete agricultural program there are three vital parts; SAE, FFA, and Classroom instruction.  SAE fits in by applying what you learn in the classroom into a real life situation. There are numerous types of SAEs from research, production to job placement. So in other words you don't need to live on a farm to have a SAE you can work in the agricultural industry or conduct a research project on any agricultural related topic! Now the SAEs I visited last weekend were production based.

Justin is a sophomore who has a job placement SAE as well as a beef breeding production SAE.

At the fair Justin was showing one of his Hereford heifers. He only brought one to the fair this year however between his younger brother and his family they have 19 beef breeding cows, and 27 dairy cows. Justin also works at a livestock auction barn! All this work is paying off though, with 1,000 hours logged in last year Justin is on his way to earning his Keystone degree in two years and hopefully he will pursue his American Degree one day!

Desirae is all about horses and her SAE reflects that. And that is the beauty of a SAE its student driven, so what ever you are passionate about that's what you get to put in all that hard work for! Desirae is also a sophomore at Northwestern High school and is really into rodeo. I had a great time getting to know her and talk to her about her career goals. She currently has six horses she brought three to the fair this year to compete in gaming. Her dedication to horses is pretty evident, she started with her main horse Splash and trained him from the bottom up to make him the horse she wanted. She is hoping to qualify for the state rodeo with Splash. Desirae competes in pole bending and barrel racing as well as various other rodeo events. From her passion for horses Desirae as found a path she wants to create into a life long career. How many sophomores know where they want to go to college as well as what they want to do with the rest of their lives? Well this girl knows! She would like to attended college in Kentucky where she plans on taking Splash and competing on the rodeo team. Her career goals are to get into Chiropractics for horses. All of these life plans were made possible simply because Desirae had the chance to find out what she loves! Who knew you could get college prep in an agricultural classroom? 

SAE is all about the student; getting the chance to work towards awards and degrees, getting a chance to try out a career or industry, and giving students experience in fields they have a passion for. No program would be complete with out an SAE and Albion FFA has  76% of their students involved in SAE. They also won an awesome award for their improvements in SAE! They are one out of 20 schools that received this award with over 130 applications. So great job Albion FFA! 

 

I am so honored to work with such an amazing program full of students with so much potential and I can not wait to become even more involved in each student's SAE.

Be sure to check me out on Twitter @rachie12rach! Until next time...