 So, I'm Jeremy Kennedy and I'm one of the two ag teachers here at Phoenix High School. We're here in my classroom, I've been an ag teacher here at Phoenix, I'm starting my 11th year, I've been in the profession for 13 years, so that's here at Phoenix. I actually was going to be a herdsman, that was my whole goal in life. I went to Oregon, well I went to Limbett Community College first and I was on their livestock judging team and then I went to Oregon State and was on their livestock judging team and I was just about ready to graduate and I wanted to be a herdsman. I was really hoping to be on a purebred operation somewhere in the midwest and be in charge of their whole program and then it kind of hit me that you know that's a great thing to do for a couple of years but what's better than that and so I was actually sitting on the couch watching TV there in my house that I lived at at Oregon State and a friend of mine who was going to become an ag teacher, I was getting ready to go to a conference and a person by the name of Dr. Greg Thompson who was the department head at Oregon State for Ag Education for a long time he came up to me and I'm laying there on the couch he says I think you should be an ag teacher and I thought hmm interesting and so I just kind of didn't go anywhere with it and then I kind of started thinking about it. Some other people were very influential in me becoming an ag teacher as well. John Demick who taught at Crater for a lot of years, retired in 2003. He was also instrumental in me becoming an ag teacher so I just kind of I delayed my graduation so that I didn't have to take more classes at as a graduate student and so I went to my second senior year as I like to call it at Oregon State got my prerequisites done for Ag Education then I got into the master's program it was funny because I had I graduated before I had never met my wife we didn't meet until that second senior year got in the master's program and did my student teaching at Crater with Mr. Demick and then got hired there right out of college and then came here three years after that. We moved to Malala when I was in the seventh grade and that's when I got my first experience with agriculture other than going to some of my families up in the Lama Valley distant relatives hop farm in St. Paul and so we got cows when we moved to Malala and we were there until I was a junior in high school and then I moved to Vale, Oregon and my family actually moved to Vale a year before that and so I moved to Vale I graduated from Vale High School I consider Vale where I'm from even though I've been I've had the unique opportunity of living in all areas of our state my little brother still is in Vale with his wife and three kids and my mom and my step dad live in Vale so my heart's still still there boy that you know they're all different in terms of the agriculture and it all goes to with the topography with the amount of rainfall especially in our state rainfall is so determined on what you have when we were in the Lama Valley we had a small cattle operation purebred charlays we were all on grass pastures we didn't raise any hay because it was too expensive to have enough ground to do that so we bought ground whereas when we were in eastern Oregon we had a little bit larger area had a way better opportunities to buy alfalfa a lot cheaper by our other stuff so it all depends upon where you're from in terms of what happens I've got some farmers that I've worked for over in Vale in Ontario that raise have raised spuds soybean or spuds corn wheat sugar beats and they used to do that in a rotation and onions and now they're mainly onions corn and alfalfa so it's interesting how just their stuff has changed and then of course central Oregon high desert lots of crops in central Oregon especially towards the northern part central Oregon madras a lot of grass seed and madras one of the cool things we also get to do as an ag teachers we go on Oregon ag tour we've taken kids three times since I've been here at Phoenix this last time we started in California on Highway 101 and went clear the length of the coast and we toured agriculture all along the length of the coast and so that was pretty pretty exciting especially for those kids to see that different stuff that happens and and our state's so unique me you can go we could drive an hour and we're at the coast a whole different agriculture drive an hour to the east and we're in the Klamath Basin which I I farmed in the Klamath Basin with some friends when I was after 2000 I think it was the year after 2000 2000 they lost water and so the year after that I went to work for cleaver farms over there and farmed with them for the summer because I wanted to see what that opportunity was like and I did it for next to nothing just for the experience so yeah so I'm an ag teacher in FFA is intercurricular so I also have an extended contract so I have a 24-day extended contract 26 day extended contract to do the FFA throughout the school year that's not covered by my teaching contract and then we also get a stipend to cover the stuff by our teaching contract that's after hours so for example like today we were here for ag sales an hour after contract so that would cover underneath that small stipend and then all that extra time we spend during the summertime and on days off when other teachers are on spring break we're at state convention that covers during our our extended contract ag education FFA is a part of ag education FFA is an intercurricular part of ag education so in all of our classes kids take ag classes here at the high school and in all of those classes they have the opportunity to be an FFA so we learn agriculture in the classroom we experience agriculture in the FFA and so they get the opportunity to either raise an animal a lot of our kids raise animals for the fair or some of them work for family members and so that's that piece and then there's another piece of it and that's this contest and these CDs these career development events where they get to take some of this other knowledge they get in the classroom and really get the opportunity to see what they know against other people so those are kind of our three so we call it the three-circle model ag education supervised agriculture experience which is raising animals working for people and then the career development events or the FFA part of it they can't kids a lot of kids in ag education at Phoenix don't take advantage of the FFA opportunities unfortunately and so they're missing out on those pieces but the kids we do get for all three parts they're very well-rounded it is not a required course it's an elective it's it's part of the career and technical education so a kid here at Phoenix does have to take three credits of either career and technical education foreign language or the fine arts and so ag education follows in falls into that but it's not a required course it's we have about 700 plus here in the high school and between my teaching partner and I we see about 230 kids a year and that changes we have a lot of semester classes so that changes through the semesters so we probably see a quarter of them at least currently we have I think 40 FFA members last year we finished a year with sick 50 or 60 I can't remember off top my head so we are very very small in terms of our families that actually make a living in agriculture that we get here we have a lot more that have hobby farms or that maybe have agriculture as their hobby not necessarily their living but not very many that make a living in in agriculture so agriculture education helps give students the background knowledge they need to pursue a career in agriculture through all of our standards through all the stuff we do and unfortunately in agriculture especially in our Valley it is so expensive to get started because ground is is hugely expensive so what we can give the students is we can give them that passion because the second they get that passion then they won't ever quit at it they'll that'll be stuck with them whether they're just raising a couple of lambs on the side whether they're getting their kids to raise lambs later on in life it's amazing how many former students that aren't currently involved in agriculture but still do something with agriculture because of that passion that's been laid so that's the best thing we can get for them aside from that we can also give them some background knowledge some people to talk to some places they can go maybe some career opportunities we have a good working relationship with the Oregon Department of Agriculture in terms of getting some students when they qualify to different areas we also have a good working relationship with other organizations like the farm service agency and we can send kids off to farm credit services to try to get things accomplished if that's what they want to do a little historical perspective FFA came about in 1928 it actually agriculture education started in 1917 so we're in the centennial year of agriculture education which is pretty exciting FFA came about 1928 and then there was that gap and it was originally started for teach young boys how to farm and that's what it was there for and so women didn't come into the FFA until 1969 and so if we think about it 1970 ish so we're like what 36 years roughly 46 years roughly excuse me since women have been involved in agriculture education in FFA and our chapter is probably two to one girls to boys maybe even three to one girls to boys I think it can't do anything but help it to be honest with you because the more non-traditional folks we can get to at least care about agriculture at least have a passion about it the better off we're going to be and traditionally a woman's role in agriculture has not been that one of what a man's has and so if we can get more women involved which we have done in the FFA I mean you look at our leadership you look at ad teachers in fact I was just looking at the history of Phoenix FFA we are in our first year was 1956 so we're what 61 years and in 61 years we've had two female ad teachers at Phoenix High School in 61 years and but we've had way more students come through that are female so it's just it's been a huge shift I think it really helps in terms of especially the heritage I know my wife's family my wife's an only child and so that's going to be a female succession in terms of agriculture and she's currently working on the family ranch and that's what her job is and so more females can get involved in agriculture the better off we're going to be and it's amazing that the shift to that we see from time to time in terms of those students that want to take a leadership role and like currently we have six chapter officers all are female last year we had seven all were female two years ago we had seven two were male and the rest were and five were female so we've kind of seen this the shift not only in our chapter but also in our leadership of our chapter crater has a huge program and Eagle Point has a huge program and Rogue River has a program and but the Medford school district they don't have a program so nope never had one Ashland's never had one Medford's been in a few of our meetings lately so I don't know if they're thinking about starting one but they haven't been in a few of our Ag teacher meetings lately so for our purposes here at Phoenix we're guided by our advisory committee and so with what our advisory committee considers to be the agriculture that we need to look at in terms of our local area and then as an Ag teacher we get the freedom to look at the agriculture of our state as well so basically agriculture is anything for me anything that can be grown from soil water anything that can be used and that then is legal as well to be used in our not only our state but also our nation well so yeah we don't spend as much time on pairs we talk about pairs is one of the top commodities in our Valley but we don't spend a ton of time on pairs we talk a little bit about vineyards we talk about the grape aspect of it we don't necessarily spend a lot of time talking about the winemaking because of our just our culture down here but there are some programs that do spend more time talking about that we also spend a lot of time with cattle and calves because that my passion is cattle and calves and it's also you know Jackson County is pretty pretty big in Jackson County and we're number one in the state again in terms of commodities cattle and calves were this last year we spent a lot of nursery greenhouse time because that's something we can do here on campus that's really easy we have a greenhouse so we raise plants my teaching partner Hillary walk-up she handles the plant science side of our program as well as a lot of the animal science and vet med side I handle the welding the ag mechanics and the natural resources and then the introduction but anyway so we have that plant sale so we raise plants in our greenhouse student raised plants in our greenhouse and we have a plant sale on Mother's Day weekend and then we also use our greenhouse to start plants for our farm-to-school program and the garden here and so we actually give them a portion of our greenhouse to use to start and then our kids help do some of those starts too so yeah and all all four chapters in Jackson County and prospects in Jackson County too I should say prospect has a chapter as well at FFA chapter it's not as old as the other four but they are active not as large obviously because it's smaller school out there so but all five chapters have greenhouses and all five chapters have plant sales so 4-H and FFA have some similarities and differences one of the major similarities is that both organizations are about kids and both organizations are about our youth and getting our youth involved with something 4-H they have way more opportunities in terms of what they can do because 4-H covers so much more than just agriculture 4-H is not just about agriculture they have sewing they have table setting fact a friend of mine's daughter was champion table setter at the Jackson County Fair this year in 4-H and I didn't know they had such a thing FFA focuses mainly on agriculture as opposed to 4-H 4-H is for all students 10 years old to 18 FFA is for high school students 9th grade through 12th grade both of them give students opportunities 4-H is more ran by volunteers 4-H leaders or volunteers it's kind of a more local volunteer leader scenario where FFA the ag teacher is the FFA advisor and so like for example there's five chapters in our county there might be 20 4-H clubs that do various animals so those are the main differences the other thing that we'll find is that in 4-H when I first got here to Jackson County when I started teaching at Crater when I was student teaching I was an assistant 4-H leader for a small beef club 4-H is one of those things that one of those organizations that relies a lot more on parents a lot more on parental support and we still rely upon parents in the FFA but not nearly as much as as they need to in 4-H because our kids are older County fair is just a big deal for FFA as it is for 4-H our kids compete in our FFA shows at County Fair and then they sell on the junior livestock auction with the 4-H students correct so this last year we had an amazing year in Jackson County the sale actually grossed 1.2 million dollars which is just phenomenal and so in the sheep pigs and steers even it's about three or four 4-H animals to every FFA animal sometimes a little more so we're not nearly as large but we are involved in that and so like last year students at Phoenix High School made around $30,000 with their projects selling them at the County Fair yeah which is amazing for our our school not counting the ones that did 4-H because we have a lot of we have a lot of members that do like their pigs or steers in FFA and they do their lambs and 4-H because we have a really good lamb club here in our side of the Valley is called Wagner Valley sheep and Julie Lockett is the leader of Wagner Valley sheep and she is an amazing 4-H leader and she has done just an awesome job with that program and so they have quite a few of our Phoenix FFA members become junior leaders of that 4-H club and a lot of them take their lambs in that 4-H club which is totally awesome I mean there's a lot of counties you go to where there's this 4-H FFA divide and it's not that way for us anyway I also do all the technology for the Jackson County Junior livestock auction and so I work with the extension office for that because they're a huge part of that junior livestock auction I mean they're one-fifth of the of the numbers so I work with Kim Scamers quite a bit on that and then Anne Manlove before she retired on that so it's made a difference to all kinds of kids. One kid in particular I could think of his name is Jake Ersig and he was a squirrely freshman his freshman year and my wife will tell you that I was not very impressed with him as a freshman which is totally accurate but same token I never gave up on him even though I wasn't very impressed with him as a freshman he went on to become a state FFA officer he got his American FFA degree he just recently got married to another state FFA officer from John Day who incidentally enough her ag teacher was Chris Kaiser who went to school here at Phoenix and graduated from Phoenix High School and so Jake went to Phoenix graduated from Phoenix met Nicole from John Day they got married just this last year he is currently at NC State working on a master's degree in ruminant monogasprate nutrition with an emphasis in hogs his wife Nicole who is a state FFA officer she is working for a agriculture blog there in North Carolina and so he just and he went to school at Oregon State and then transferred to K State got his degree in K State and we actually stay in touch quite often it's cool thing about my job to meet those former students another former student that was a boy when I came here my first year was 2006 she was a sophomore in 2006 and she competed in parley pro went to nationals in parliamentary procedure she competed in floor culture went to nationals in floor culture she competed in a speaking contest she ran for a state office she didn't get elected which was unfortunate but then we got the pleasure of hiring her three years ago to be our other ag teacher and so we got the opportunity to work with her again and her name's Hillary Walkup and so it's really cool to be able to work with somebody who you taught when they were in school but who also her only school that she's ever been to has been Phoenix Town School District I mean clear up from K through 12 and then she went and got bachelor's degree and master's degree now she's back here teaching in terms of day-to-day that helped transform a student you know who knows it could have been they found a love for something we were talking about it could have been they developed a passion in something I can speak to myself when I was a student in at Malala I was in the mall FFA I did a couple of contest livestock judging and ag sales and then parliamentary procedure and then when I was a veil I did livestock judging and ag sales and parliamentary procedure and the FFA and it really turned me to agriculture that I wanted to do that as a career not not teaching obviously because I didn't come to that until much later but something in agriculture the spark just kind of hit I really enjoyed it I really enjoyed livestock I really enjoyed the friends I made with livestock judging I really enjoyed the parts of livestock judging where you got to be with people you got to work as a team I enjoyed that stuff and then the backside of it in terms of livestock judging you're picking the best animal out of four so then I got the opportunity to go judge a bunch of shows and so I judged a bunch of shows all over the state judged a couple shows in Idaho a couple shows in Washington and just got that opportunity and then you think about wow well let's how do we make those really good animals and how what are our breeding decisions that go into that so then we've got to do some of that too with with my wife's family's ranch and our cows that we have and so I think for me it was just a passion for agriculture not from a little young glad because I wasn't into it when I was yeah I mean I didn't get started till I was a 7th grader and so I was pretty late coming to the to the agricultural realm so anyway but we hope when we see them in class any one of those kids that we can we can get a connection with them and I was taught a long time ago that that teachings not necessarily about the curriculum it's about a connection and it's about making that connection that relationship with those kids and if we can connect with them and we can develop that relationship with them why then we've we've we've got them and we can show them what to do and and what what what the whole big exciting world there is out for them I've been here for 13 years and in that 13 years it's been really interesting in terms of the things that have happened in terms of the the most interesting thing I think happened just a couple years ago with a ban on GMOs in our county and so that that's a huge shift from what is acceptable in terms of as a nation national agriculture fact we were just back in Indianapolis, Indiana for the National FFA convention and we spent a little bit of time in Illinois on a farmer's dairy and we were talking to him about corn and all the corn back in Illinois, Indiana it's all GMO corn and he was just in awe that there would be an area that was GMO free like ours so that's been the biggest change I think to our Valley other changes in Oregon the hard thing to keep family farms going family ranches going is the inheritance taxes and the expenses of those inheritance taxes that's a challenge in terms of what's changed agriculture and then the other thing is labor costs boy labor healthcare sick time all that stuff has just had to change we've had to get more modern we've had to do things more efficient with less hand labor which is hard in a lot of our I mean there is no machine that'll pick a pair I mean it is not a mechanically picked crop and yet it is one of our huge crops here in the Rogue Valley and so it's totally relied upon labor to pick it and labor is expensive especially now where we've got minimum wages going up we've got sick time at the state level anyway that's coming and so it's an expensive deal and then in terms of cattle and calves in our Valley we've there's a lot of ground that's been lost that cannot longer be utilized for raising cattle because it's raising other I don't want to call my crop alternative products now and so there's a lot of that going on our Valley which has changed some of the things that happens to heritage heritage to me is the roots you have it is what happens before you and I'm really into history which is kind of cool and so your heritage is what you can look back on my son is a seventh generation to be born on my wife's family's ranch in Eagle Point and so his heritage is everything that we have there and we still and my father-in-law has done a fantastic job of taking care of things and so we have all that heritage for him we still have back I just found it's kind of embarrassing to admit I just found the single bottom plow that is great great grandfather used when he first plowed and I found it in the weeds pulled it out and now it's in our flowerbed hopefully one day to restore but we still have all that historical machinery that heritage we still use the horse barn that their family used to to team up the horses to plow we still use that for our horses we don't have draft horses anymore we have tractors but we still use that barn and so you can still see in in the barn where the floor you know has been worn back and forth by those draft horses that spent so much time in there we still have the harnesses hanging up so that's what heritage means to me stewardship boy what a great word stewardship stewardship to me is taking care of what you have and making the best possible decisions that so that you can not only utilize it for your benefit now but also the benefit of your family later on and so it's taking care of your resources and again my father-in-law has done a fantastic job of that we also have some timber ground and so in terms of that we harvest trees and we replant and not because it's the law a lot of people don't know that but legally you have to replant it always gets me when some people think well they're just going to cut everything down no in Oregon you have to replant but we don't do it because it's it's the law we do it because it's a sustainable thing to do for our family hopefully we've got some little pine trees at a couple of places and and hopefully my son in 30 40 years will be able to harvest those trees and do something good with that money whether it's pay for something or pay for college or pay for something new machinery that he needed to buy whatever that would be stewardship so sustainable is to me it's using products using our natural resources in a way that they will be around for generation and generation and I say using because we still have to use them to be sustainable I don't believe sustainability is just letting them sit by I believe sustainability is actively managing them because if we're not managing what we have we're not doing a very good job for our future generations and it's amazing every decision that's made on my wife's family ranch is not only about today but it's also about tomorrow or the next day or the years down the road because it's been in the family for that long it's a huge priority to keep it in the family even longer I think it's really important that we look back to where we've been so we can have an idea of where we're going because we need to learn from the past and a lot of people concentrate on learning from the mistakes of the past and I think we should concentrate on learning from the successes of the past I mean there are things that have been done in our Valley for a number of years that may or may not be necessarily the way it's done everywhere else but it works for our Valley and so I like to look back on the way things have been to look towards what's going to happen I think it's really important I get the opportunity to do what I love a lot and I get the opportunity to share that with kids and I do love teaching but I love agriculture even more in fact this last weekend Veterans Day weekend which we were very thankful for our veterans to that's another part of heritage at least at the Stanley Ranch is to thank those who have served before us but this last weekend on Veterans Day got the opportunity to gather one of our meadows up in the mountains on horseback drive cows over haul them home Saturday got to do that with my son he's not old enough to be on a horse yet he's not quite four so we were on a four wheeler he and I and we were doing that together so just amazing