National FFA Week: Woodland Woodland FFA students focus on career skills

Joe Ridings teaches agriculture courses at Woodland High School and serves as the Woodland FFA Chapter adviser.

This is his fifth year at Woodland and being a part of the school’s FFA program.

“The goal for us is develop career skills,” Ridings said. “As soon as the career development events start, those are basically FFA kids where I can take them to show off their skills and compete with other kids.”

“We have a forestry team, and every year I’ve been here we’ve made it to the state competition, so that’s a pretty big competition,” Ridings said.

Other competitions include speech, drone and precision agriculture, agriculture mechanics and horse judging.

“We have a lot of fun with it, at FFA week,” Ridings said. “We have a big barn warming event with a dance. For me, FFA is about these competitions that I get these kids ready for. Once you’ve gone to a place to compete a little, when you graduate it is way easier to go into an interview and things like that.”

Overall, being involved for the students can helps with confidence and developing future job skills, Ridings noted.

“In the professional world, they like the kids that have done the things for the career development events, but they want to get them where they can mold them their own way, too,” Ridings said. “As long as you have that career development event experience coming out of high school, that looks really good when you’re looking for a job. It also looks really good when you’re trying to get into a college or a tech school, like a lot of my kids.”

“Having that experience when you go to talk to people is a big boost for these kids,” Ridings said. “We have a lot of events.”

Jefferson City has a “drive your tractor to the capital day". While no one from Woodland can travel that far, they are doing this on more of a local level.

“We have drive your tractor and side by side to school day during FFA week,” Ridings said. “I like having a bunch of old tractors. It’s a fun event. We also have a muddy truck competition. Usually, the award is a nice cleaning kit.

“It’s basically just exposure (for FFA) for the rest of the floor,” Ridings said. “For me, it’s also about those kids in middle school who are not in FFA yet, and they see us doing lots of fun stuff, they say, ‘Oh, that’s the club, I want to be in … I want to drive a tractor to school.’”

“In all of Bollinger County, the biggest industry is forestry,” Ridings. “A lot of people make their living in forestry and a lot of landowners supplicate their industry by working with forestry. Forestry really is agriculture. It’s just not on a one-year cycle. It’s on a 15-20 year cycle. Forestry is the biggest industry team.”

Those involved with FFA can earn an "industry recognized credential," which Ridings said gives students the basics of managing a timber stand

Wildlife management course also is another option.

"We are so blessed at here at Woodland,” Ridings said. “We have 160 acres attached to campus, so I have classes with timber stand improvements. We actually go out and do the forestry work.”

Additional courses FFA students are involved in for the 2024-25 school year include animal science, veterinary science, ag power (a simple mechanics class), small and large engine repairs (where they learn the basics of carburetion and timing).

One of Ridings' favorite courses to teach is "ag structures", which is not offered this year

“It’s like a carpentry class,” he said. “We do wiring.”

Ridings said it will likely return for the 2025-26

In years past, work by students has included the constructing a red shed behind the Woodland track, the reworking of a stream bed behind school. There are also lessons on the conservation of natural resources, the basics of tractors and chainsaw uses.

Ridings recently wrote a grant for a drone. This is precision agriculture - another way of saying drone agriculture - and prepares students to take the FAA 107 drone course

“I enjoy before able to do things at school I’m interested in, and being able to what I like to do first hand at school,” Long said Alex Long, a two year member of FFA.

“I just like it because it’s about agriculture and that’s what I want to go to for college,” said Tessa Dowd, the chapter's vice president in 2024-25. “I want to be a vet tech. It’s given me that first hand experience.”

Dowd took part in horse competition during the 2023-24 school year.

“That was a pretty cool experience,” Dowd said.

“I grew up on a farm, it kind of helps get me around other more people and stuff that I like. It also helps with communication,” said Rowland Filer. He is planning a precision agriculture speech later this winter in a competition.

“I’m on the forestry team,” said senior Janelle Fox. “This is my first year in FFA, but I’ve taken an agriculture (-related) class every year. I like FFA because I live in Jackson and I’m not around this type of thing. Now that I go to Woodland I get to experience this kind of thing. My family isn’t into the family and all this stuff. It’s like learning about a different world.”

The work related to timber management includes identifying trees, reading maps and measuring board footage

“I’ve been in FFA for three years,” said Maci McIntyre, who is in her second year on the school’s forestry team. “I’ve been able to come out of my shell a little bit. You really get to socialize with everyone, and every one is really nice. I like the fact that you can get outdoors and hands on with everything, and kind of get dirty with it.”

McIntyre and Fox both hold a biltmore stick, which assists in determining final measurements.

“You have to look at a tree, and see where there are knots and where there is a straight portion that you can get the board length,” he said. “You’d really only do this on a healthy tree,” Ridings said.