All that I ever wanted to be when I grew up was an ag teacher. Just like the end of Mr. Deeds, that is what I wanted to become and what I did become. I still get numerous calls each year wanting to know what it would take for me to come back to teaching. A PILE!! I have seen the other side..money, time, divorce, etc….and I know that even if want to, I can’t go back.

I love the FFA. I truly enjoy working with kids. Livestock, speeches, ag mech, etc. I am all in. If they gave an award for something, my students won it. That is how I am wired.

I started my teaching sentence at Billings with a 3 year sentence. Great people. Perfect place to learn. Then I spent the best nine years of my career at Waynoka. Look at FFA history in Oklahoma. That is the best FFA/4-H community in the state. That place gets it. No ag teacher has ever retired from Waynoka; however, no ex-Waynokan talks bad about the place. Then there is Fairview. I didn’t want to go there but I did. My fault. I was burned out, but I knew I could build the chapter and we accomplished that. And thenI got in deep crap. My fault. Glad that it happened. I wouldn’t have quit teaching without that ordeal. However, it moved me into a really good job, saved my marriage and kept me out of some sort of rehab / counseling.

I still miss dealing with kids on a regular basis. I miss working on speeches, grass boards, CDE teams, proficiency awards and ag mech projects. I don’t miss fund raisers, teacher’s meetings, state reports or parents. The worst set of parents that I dealt with were at Fairview. Former ag teacher, now present with a meddling wife. Their kids are phenomenal kids. Always wanting their kids pushed to the front. Always wanting to know when local, county, Enid and OYE checks were ready. I just enjoy the fact that I was brought a county check and OYE check on June 30. One check was dated 3-15 and the other 5-7. I can’t imagine how big a stink it would have been if his kid’s checks would have laid on Roller’s desk or Mindi’s desk for that long.

Schools probably need to get stock shows out of the ag teachers hands and let them teach. I am guility of there being too much money and too much priority being placed on show animals. Not fair to the ag teachers. Duke doesn’t need an ag teacher to help with the stock shows, but he does need one to push him to be on judging teams, etc. I don’t have time to train a judging team. But I may have to start. Oh well. I really respect the ag teachers that have a wide array of students involved in different activities. Speeches are the most important. It doesn’t matter what career a student enters, public speaking will help them.