By Robert Pore
robert.pore@theindependent.com

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Independent/Barrett Stinson With some of their families¹ tractors behind them, FFA members (from left) Jeff Hostler, Kyle Mustion, Dustin Gordon and Raece Paulsen (right) react to Clint Hostler (second from right) as he shows off his T-shirt, which says, ³Friends don¹t let friends drive red tractors.² To help promote the FFA during FFA Week, some Grand Island Northwest student FFA members drove their families¹ tractors to school on Thursday. Independent/Barrett Stinson FFA members Hallie Casto (left) and Kristin Mueller sit on the tractor driven to Grand Island Northwest High by Mueller while talking to other FFA members early Thursday morning. Click Thumbnails to View

On Thursday, FFA students braved bitter cold temperatures as they drove their tractors to school.

Kristin Moeller, a senior at Northwest, drove a 1978 John Deere tractor to school.

This was the first time in the four years that Moeller has been an FFA member at Northwest that they have celebrated FFA Week by driving their tractors to school.

"It was really sweet," Moeller said. "I was going down the road and enjoying myself so much. It was really cool."

She said driving tractors to school in Grand Island was a good way to promote the FFA program.

"It's so cool because a lot of people don't see tractors and stuff because they live in town, and the kids get to have some fun doing it," Moeller said.

Despite the 10-degree weather, she said the experience was "awesome."

Raece Paulsen, a junior at Northwest, has been part of the FFA program for three years but thought the cold temperatures and biting wind were anything but "awesome."

While Paulsen didn't drive his grandfather's Model 420 John Deere tractor from the 1950s to school, it was strapped to a flatbed trailer behind his pickup truck.

Unlike Moeller's cabbed tractor, Paulsen's tractor had no cab, and the antique rebuffed repeated efforts to try to start it.

Despite the cold, Paulsen said celebrating FFA Week with a tractor drive-in was a pretty hot idea.

"I think this is good for the school because it lets everybody know that we are here," he said.

Celebrating FFA Week with a tractor drive-in was the idea of first-year Northwest FFA adviser Marci Brown.

On Wednesday, Brown and her FFA students organized a petting zoo that featured a camel, a buffalo and a wallaby, along with the regular collection of barnyard denizens.

"FFA Week always goes back to the discussion whether it's for farmers or not," Brown said. "But FFA isn't just for kids who want to be farmers anymore. They like going back to their roots and showing off what they know."

Brown said Northwest's FFA program has 36 members.

She said her vocational agriculture classes have grown "huge" since last semester.

For example, her horticulture class grew from 12 students to 21.

"Our numbers are getting bigger as we have changed some of the programs," Brown said. "We are trying to get the kids to know that, while we may be a 'rural' school, we want everybody to know that there are options for everybody in our entire ag program and not just FFA."

Along with horticulture, she has added a floriculture class and a companion animal class.

"That's become really big, as everybody loves dogs and cats and that pulls in a whole different level of students, such as those kids who like animals but have no idea about ag. But if you get them exposed to one thing, maybe they will come back for another aspect of it."