FFA advisor proud students are chasing opportunities
New Hampton High School FFA Advisor Jim Russ said he looks at two of his students receiving this opportunity as an honor to receive their goal of being a Borlaug-Ruan internship.“To have two students selected as juniors is amazing to me,” said Russ. “These young ladies set a goal to become a B-R intern and then proceeded to achieve it.”He thinks back to Cameron Hall, the first New Hampton student to participate in the Global Youth Institute and his ultimate goal was the same, to become an Intern. He fell short of that goal but it helped direct his career goals to graduating from Iowa State with an Animal Science and Global Resource Systems Degrees. He is now Assistant Manager of the Poultry Facilities at Iowa State University. To help his students, he starts by making the Iowa Youth Institute information available to the students.“I try to find out which ones might be interested in researching a country, a factor (a problem within the country) and the key is to come to some conclusions or solutions for these factors,” he said. Once they start researching and writing the paper there is no stopping them.“I give them the little positive pushes when they need it to keep working on their paper,” said Russ. “I offer some suggestions on their papers to help them think outside of the box.” He said it is very exciting to watch these students mature right in front of you, and to bring their experiences from overseas doing research back to the high school. “There are many opportunities available to students and it is our job as educators to see that students take advantage of these life changing events as much as possible.”He thinks as students see and visit with both Hannah Heit and Sam Reicks or talk with other students that have participated in the Iowa or Global Youth Institute more students will become interested in participating. “You never know which student might become the next Norman Borlaug and I would want to offer them all of the possibilities available.”
