Fife’s future farmers show off hard work at fair

Provided by Dennis Burtchett

THE FFA GROUP TAKES SOME TIME TO POSE FOR A PHOTO AT THE PUYALLUP FAIR. Pictured L–R: Patti Burtchett, April Negrete, Carly Miller, Dennis Burtchett, Erik Feroy, Will Hoyt, Patti Burtchett, and Evon Shell.

As the Puyallup Fair comes to an end, members of Fife High School’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter reflect on another successful show. This year, Fife students had their hands full displaying 13 head of cattle, two goats and seven chickens along side dozens of their peers’ livestock from neighboring school districts.

Dennis Burtchett, Fife FFA advisor, has been a teacher in the city for 31 years, but this is his first year leading the club.

“As far as the agriculture sciences go, my specialty leans more towards natural sciences,” the biology teacher said. He said because of changes in staffing and budgets, the school’s FFA program fell into his hands in July.

“I have a little bit of background in the science, but not much. So, I’m getting a lot of help from the students, my wife who grew up on a farm in the South, and from members in the community.”

Livestock is kept in Fife at the FFA chapter barn, where Burtchett said he has little interference and students are fully responsible for their care. The chapter members are in the process of making small renovations to their barn and cleaning up the space to prepare for the arrival of piglets in November. Burtchett said the students would enter the animals in the Spring Fair next year.

This year the students participated in several competitions at the fair, ranging from student age groups to animal breeds. They were judged on how well they present and others will be judged on the health and look of their animals. Although the club has little more than a dozen members, the group managed to claim 18 blue ribbons, including Chapter Herd, which is given to the chapter with the best cattle herd in the show.

“They did outstanding this year,” Burtchett said.

Although this year the competitions at the fair have been very agriculturally based, Burtchett said the program is often much more than barns, sheep and cows.

“The whole realm of agriculture education is so vast,” Burtchett noted. “So many times people think it’s just about the animals, but students can learn everything from forestry to alternative fuel. The field is almost unlimited.”

Next year, as the students are preparing for Spring Fair  competitions, Burtchett hopes to expand the group a bit more into the environmental sciences realm.

“We just want to continue the program. We are always striving to improve it,” he said. “I’d like to see the kids branch out a bit more from farm animals to topics like alternative fuel sources.”

He said one issue he will try to implement into the program would center on habitat restoration.

“I want to try and get kids to see all the other aspects that are involved in science,” Burtchett said. “Society is changing and so is our valley. We still have farmland, but there are a whole lot of other things we need to look at, such as saving the habitat we have instead of destroying it.”

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