Tammy and I have been at this ag teaching game for several decades.  I started my career by serving a 3 year sentence at Billings, OK.  This was a great place for me to start.  The superintendent was the former ag teacher.  There was a group of parents and students that were ready for a young, energetic, brash kid to take over.  I didn’t know what I was doing, but I wasn’t afraid to learn.  And that we did.

Then we moved to Waynoka in 1996.  I loved that place.  We won A LOT!  I had a LOT of FUN!   I could write books about my tenure at Waynoka.  It was really good and I still have a place in my heart for that place and those people.  But I was burnt slap out.

So, I took a job at Fairview.  This was a great move for Kela.  Me, not so much.  There were a lot of great kids and I learned while there.  I just wasn’t having fun.   But, that is also when the goat deal exploded for us.

Then, I took a really, really good job selling green tractors.  And the goat deal just kept getting better.  So, I quit that job to focus on goats and a few other things.  And that’s when I got suckered into this Shattuck gig.  I agreed to one year and here I am finishing up year # 6.  Why?  Good kids.  That’s it.

However, I have come to realize that I have had good kids at every school.  All four schools and towns are way different.  But, the same results because of really good kids.  My hypothesis is that there are good kids everywhere, if you are willing to work with them.

I routinely get calls from former students to ask me questions about this, that or the other.  I LOVE these calls.  They aren’t going around their current ag teacher.  They just need to ask a source that they know and trust.  They call Tammy as much or more.  It is a great feeling.

My personal dealings with former students goes like this.  Our accountant is a former student.  We have investments with a former student.  My dad, brother, Duke and I buy bulls from a former student.  I hired a former student as a salesman for Western Equipment.  And when I quit Western, that former student is who replaced me as a store manager.  I’ve shared fun stories of selling large equipment to former students and then going on the Gold Key tours at the John Deere Combine & Tractor factories with them.  When, I was out of teaching, I hooked up a family that I now currently teach, with a former student for show cattle.  (That sentence may be confusing.)  That was a super-successful hookup, even after that former student’s untimely death.  –We all miss those Bedwell boys.–

I traveled to Phoenix with a former student and his family this past year.  Tammy was at the Woodward District pig show to watch former student’s kids show pigs.  It was way cool to see former students & parents that came to Duke’s graduation.

I’m competitive enough and confident in my own abilities enough (NOT arrogant) that I can tell you everything that any students of mine has ever won.  But, I would way rather tell you about the kids and the stories that got us to the win.  I have so, so many great stories from the cab of an ag pickup, while working with an animal, practicing a speech or working on a shop project.

My love for showing animals is what led me to become an ag teacher.  Our success with goats is what led you, the reader, to come to this website to read this crap.  But, it is the kids and their families along with the connection to my family that keeps me going in this game.

People, I’m only an ag mechanics show and a barrow show through this district event.  I hurt.  Physically.  I’m not as good as I used to be but I just might be at the top of my game.  It doesn’t make sense.  But it does.  I know what fuels me and it isn’t a banner.  It is the work, the effort and the relationships that go into working towards a banner.

On a side note:  I went to the Daylight Donuts in Woodward this morning.  By the way, this is the best Daylight Donuts.  I don’t know what they do different but they are WICKED good!  I had a 9 year old hog showman just pounding donuts.  I knew that he had eaten more than 5.  I saw him with another donut in hand.  I asked him, “How many have you had?”

His reply.  “Mr. Kelln, I have ate eight donuts.”  Then he ate one more to make it nine.  Ate plus one equals nine.