Some 120 students in Carla Wood’s sixth grade classes at the Perry Middle School received their annual immersion in crops and livestock at Tuesday’s Agriculture in the Classroom program.
Coordinating the event with Wood were Dallas County Farm Bureau Office Manager Janet Hick and Dallas County Ag in the Classroom Coordinator Jamie Champion, with input from Jason Kruger, a PHS graduate who now works as an engineer at John Deere.
Perry Middle School Principal Ned Menke was joined by his brother, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Deputy Secretary Grant Menke, who explained the importance of agriculture to the assembled students in the Perry Performing Arts Center.
Secretary Menke told the students that land stewardship means protecting and conserving Iowa’s soil, water and air for future farmers. He described the importance of agriculture to the Iowa economy, where one in five Iowa jobs is ag-related.
Among the Ag in the Classroom stations was an Iowa Corn Growers trailer, which explained the chief uses of corn as a gasoline addictive and livestock feed. A half-million-dollar tractor was also on display in the schoolyard, courtesy of Van Wall Equipment, which Krueger explained for the young people.
Wood thanked Deputy Secretary Menke for attending as well as Hick, Champion, Krueger and others for coordinating the event and arranging for the tractors and other equipment to show to the students.
