Sandhills Post/North Platte Post
***Interviews with Landon Drews and Industrial Arts Teacher Corey Turner are located at the bottom of the article.
Paxton, Neb. - Earlier in the month, the POST met with Landon Drews, a sophomore at Paxton Schools and a member of the Paxton FFA chapter and his Industrial Arts Teacher Corey Turner to learn about Drews 2024 SAE Project and on Wednesday, Drews, Mr. Turner, Paxton students and supporters of Drews project made the trip to Paxton to watch the harvest of the dryland corn test plot.
The day, which began early Wednesday morning around 9:00am featured elementary school students being bussed over to the test plot to ask Drews questions about his project but also to learn more about different areas of agriculture.
"I'm so glad we got all the kids out here, it's so educational for them and I love having these people out here, I love the community out here and it makes me good and I like showing the community what we were doing at Paxton Schools," said Landon Drews
The middle and high school students came out late Monday morning and were split up in three separate groups to learn about the combine, chat with the seed dealers and learn about the crop and more, and finally also learned about the weigh wagon. The morning session was a good way for students to learn about different areas of agriculture during harvest season but also learn about the product itself from the seed dealers.
"We have a combine, and they (the students) are learning about the combine and how it works.... we got a weigh wagon which they are using for the test plot and every pass they make they will weigh the corn and then they will put it in the semi... the kids are learning about the weigh wagon and the semi..... we got some of our seed dealers inside talking about the corn plant itself, what the corn is used for and the different parts of the plant," said Industrial Arts Teacher Corey Turner.
The plot of land on highway 30 located by the Paxton Schools Bus Barn is owned by the school and farmers used to harvest the land before it was taken over by the school. Drews was approached in his 8th grade year by Mr. Turner about taking over the land and doing a project and since has taken off with it.
"Mr. Turner approached me at the end of my 8th grade year and said would you be interested in this and I really didn't know, I was kind of on the edge about it but than my freshman year I was kind of like let's get this done," said Drews. "My brother and I were sitting in the tractor discing a field around this time of year, and we were talking about how we should do a test plot, and I didn't think we were going to do a test plot originally and after that I got to get this done."
Mr. Turner wanted to pick a student to use the test plot of land and wanted that student to take charge of the project for more than a year.
"I wanted him to be able to see it through his whole high school career .... but he jumped on board first thing his freshman year and he has gone above and beyond for what I was expecting," said Turner.
For Drews project, the community support has been amazing and going around asking folks about wanting to donate or help with his project, folks jumped on board. Six different dealers helped support Drews project and those dealers are Channel, DeKalb, Golden Harvest, Becks, Hoegemeyer, and Pioneer. Hi-Line Coop sprayed the corn, and Harden Agency insured the crop from hail over the summer.
This project will hopefully help Drews earn his state degree and even earn his national degree.
To check out the original story about Drews FFA project, click here.
Interviews:
***Interviews were recorded Wednesday morning (10/30/24) at the dryland test plot during the event.
Landon Drews:
Corey Turner:
