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Miami High School’s FFA program has grown and progressed significantly since Miami Jr./Sr. High School’s agriculture instructor and Future Farmers of America (FFA) Jimmy Crosby’s arrival at the beginning of the 2023 school year.
Since then, Crosby and his students have built two greenhouses, sheds to store tools and feed, 12 growing tables, and new livestock pens for the program. Livestock numbers have grown significantly from four chickens and three turkeys the program started with. Crosby donated four does (female goats) last year and bred them.
Now he is expecting nine of the does to have kids in the next 30 days.
“So we’ll have a mess of goats,” he says with a smile.
One of the goats was placed last year with a student to show at the county fair.
Fourteen of Crosby’s students attended the annual FFA Spring Conference at University of Arizona in Tucson on February 28 and March 1, where they were among 1,831 students from around the state involved in various competitions. The event hosted 22 state-level contests (career and leadership development events) in categories such as: aquaculture, forestry, livestock evaluation, entomology, soils, floriculture, food science, and veterinary science.
Last year was the first year that MHS students participated in such events at the state level, according to Crosby.
MHS student Viren Roojam placed 6th in the job interview category. MHS student Jessica Wilson placed 7th in dairy evaluation (where students examine dairy cattle and place them in classes by quality), and MHS student John McGaughey placed 9th in dairy evaluation.
On a recent school day, while lining up the new livestock pens they’ve built with Crosby, students explained that they enjoy FFA for the hands-on aspects.
“Being able to do stuff like this instead of just being in the classroom all day,” and “being able to actually learn something, being able to work toward going to state contests and national conventions,” are what students agreed are some of their favorite parts of the program.
Miami currently has a total of 117 agriculture students taught under Crosby, 88 who are confirmed members of FFA, and 23 who are 8th graders, and approximately 60 who are in their second year of taking agriculture with Crosby.
“So for being a first year teacher, and having that kind of retention, I didn’t feel was too bad,” he says.
The students who are sophomores and juniors this year seem especially excited about the program, Crosby says.
“They’ve participated enough in FFA, they’ve seen what other chapters offer, they’re more inclined to want to go and learn,” he adds. “They’ve taken advantage of the opportunities.”
Such students include Elijah Lopez.
“This is my second year of agriculture, and I love it so much,” he says.
He adds that FFA has given him a lot of opportunities to learn about ag mechanics, and has afforded him the opportunity to show a steer later this year at the county fair.
Crosby and his students finished building the greenhouses just before their grand opening on December 9. Several students came to the school over their winter break to finish the project. The greenhouses were funded by Empowering Arizona, a nonprofit that offers grants to school districts.
Tractor Supply donated 50 pounds of vegetable and flower seeds to Crosby’s classes, which students have already begun to plant in the greenhouses, such as corn, peppers, peas, watermelon, and sunflowers.
“I’m flexible on what the students want to grow,” Crosby says.
Now he is working on getting electricity to the houses so they can run exhaust fans and evaporative coolers to help control the humidity and temperature.
He is also working with Pinto Valley Mine to get conveyor belting—¾ inch rubber mat—which will be used as flooring in the greenhouses and will also keep the structures warm at night.
Just two weeks ago, for FFA week, Crosby worked with the students to harvest three goats. Crosby brought the harvested animals back to students at the school for them to process and then cook.
The purpose, of course, was “for students to learn how to prepare food,” Crosby explains.
The meat was frozen, and the culinary students will use it to make curry for one of the business partner cafés held at the school.
Miami’s FFA program uses the Agricultural Experience Tracker (AET), a personalized online FFA record book system widely used by high schools for tracking experiences in agriculture courses, for record keeping. Miami ranks 5th for number of supervised agricultural experiences had by students, and it ranks 4th in Arizona for number of badges, which are earned by students keeping weekly journals, documenting finances and record keeping in the official online FFA portal.
Other top rankers throughout the state have as little as 44 students in their FFA program.
“To be 4th on the list, I’m pretty confident that’s worth talking about,” Crosby says.
He has high hopes for the future of the school’s FFA program, with plans to continue improving the structures on site, and eventually integrate pigs and sheep into the school’s livestock inventory. And, he hopes that his returning students will continue to develop an interest in the program.
“It takes a long time to build a desire to want to be in agriculture,” he says.
Miami’s FFA program continues to show promise in nurturing that desire in students.
Jenn Walker began writing for Globe Miami Times in 2012 and has been a contributor ever since. Her work has also appeared in Submerge Magazine, Sacramento Press, Sacramento News & Review and California Health Report. She currently teaches Honors English at High Desert Middle School and mentors Globe School District’s robotics team.
