By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

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Independent/Barrett Stinson During Ag Day at Fonner Park on Tuesday, Engleman fourth-grader Alyssa Vanosdall (upper right) has no problem petting a lamb with her classmates, but she doesnıt care much for the smell. Independent/Barrett Stinson Surrounded by Grand Island area fourth-graders, Kourtney Kruse, 17, talks about sheep while carrying a lamb for the kids to pet on Tuesday during Ag Day in Grand Island. Independent/Barrett Stinson A beef cow doesnıt seem to mind a swarm of hands during Tuesdayıs Ag Day at Fonner Park, as long as the hands have hay to eat in them. Click Thumbnails to View

The event is sponsored by the Grand Island Area Chamber of Commerce and its agriculture committee to ensure that young people know about the agricultural economy and its impact on Grand Island and Hall County.

While the kids were excited to touch horses, sheep, chickens and cattle, many were just as excited to touch the littlest creatures of agriculture insects.

Terry Devries with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln department of entomology told the kids that "one out of every three bites of food we take is because of insects."

Sometimes insects, such as honeybees, make food that people like to eat. Other times, bees pollinate the flowers of food that people eat.

Other insects eat harmful insects that like to eat some of the same foods that humans do, Devries said.

Students were shown a case of butterflies, as well as beetles.

"There are more species of beetles than any other insect," Devries told the kids.

He noted that insects metamorphose, which means they change shape. Devries talked about how the ladybug goes from egg to larva to pupa to adult.

The students then volunteered to handle several live insects, including the Madagascar hissing cockroach and African millipede.

That typically caused the rest of the students to swarm around the volunteer insect holder to get a better look at the bug.

Devries gave his lessons in the Fonner Park concourse, where other presenters talked about dairy farms, poultry and egg production, cattle raising, the fabrics that can be made from wool and all the products that come from farms: salad dressings, cooking oils and peanut butter.

In addition to providing hamburgers, steaks and pot roasts, cattle also provide all kinds of byproducts, which are then used to make items such as crayons, gelatins, cooking oil and peanut butter.

That whole cycle includes production of agricultural products on the farm, processing of those products, as well as marketing and distributing them.

While fourth-graders in the Fonner Park concourse learned those lessons, other students gathered in the nearby barn to hear Ron Knodel talk about training horses and Gregg Kremer explain how to shoe a horse, while actually performing the procedure.

After that, the students trooped to another part of the barn where they got to hear high school students in FFA and 4-H talk about chickens, ewes, lambs and cattle, all of which were in pens so the kids could get an up-close look and perhaps even pet them.

More than 550 fourth-graders from Grand Island and Hall County were expected to attend Tuesday's Ag Day.

Representatives from the Nebraska Cattle Women, Nebraska Soybean Association, Egg and Poultry Council and Nebraska Dairy Council were among the groups that sent individuals to give presentations on Tuesday.