J Nrrmlhg, SaWrBay, September 5,1987 BY LOU ANN GOOD Lancaster County Sixty-five Pennsylvania high-school students attended the Pennsylvania Gover nor’s School for Agriculture at Penn State. This opportunity affords honor students with high achievements and leadership skills to explore their agriculture interests by inde pendent research. The two students featured in this article are representative of the quality of students who received this preligious opportunity. Seventeen-year-old Jim Shirk, East Earl, and Robin Weiss, a Manheim Central senior, count the five-week study as a highlight of their life. The. excitment of icsearch broadened the perspective of these top-notch students. They learned not only about numerous ag related careers but also how to fit the right career with their personal ities. They benefitted from meet ing professors from the college and the close working relationship they had with them. Jim said, “College experience gave us a good dose of what I can expect as a fulltime col lege student majoring ip engineer ing. It’s designed for individual super exposure.” According to Bob Lauffer, Gar den Spot Ag teacher, applicants must be top students, write essays on why they are interested in pur suing their field of study and show leadership ability in activities. These qualifications must be accompanied by letters of recom mendations by three of the stu dent’s teachers. Sixty-five stu dents are then chosen from hun dreds of applicants. Jim, son of William and Cathryn Shirk of East Earl, is a Red Rose Star farmer and a senior at Garden Spot High School. He was amazed that some students were sharp academically but showed no com mon sense in agriculturally related subjects because they weren’t for tunate to have ag classes at school. The seventeen-year-old Garden Spot senior leads his class in academic achievement with a 3.989 grade average. Jim and parents feel that Jim has been instrumental in helping over come a lot of academic snobbery in the school system. His mother Jim Shirk left, and Garden Spot Ag teacher, Bob Lauffer, examine a pheasant Jim i& raising. Students Explore Ag Research explained that when Jim first decided to enter the FFA program in ninth grade, teachers told him, “You’re too smart to take ag.” But Jim’s FFA teacher. Bob Lauffer, protested “If ag cannot attract top students, we’re in trou ble,” Lauffer said. “Ag is as techni cal in nature as any other occupa tion.” The Shirks who recently acquired Jim’s grandfather’s 66 acre Silver Valley Farm, consider themselves more hobby farmers than career farmers. They grow com, wheat, soybeans, and alfafa and usually Jim raises 20 head of steers. Jim considers himself lucky to benefit from Garden Spot’s strong ag program. The school offers two different programs in production agriculture which concentrates on studying crops and farming tech niques and in environment agricul ture which focuses on soil, conser vation and wildlife. Jim has completed three years of environmental ag and will take the production part during his senior year. All the projects Jim has com pleted qualifies him to apply for three separate national FFA profi ciency awards. Since the Shirks have remodeled their farmstead and updated their farm operation, Jim will use his input into those changes as qualifications for the Home and Farmstead Approval awards. Also, Jim had all their land put in contours which qualifies him for the Conservation Manage ment awards. Currently, Jim with the help of his ag teacher and Rutt’s Custom Kitchens, a busi ness that borders the Shirks acreage, are putting in a pond to help manage soil and water prob lems. Jim’s planning in the pond project should help him win a Soil and Water Management awards. Jim is lavish with his praise of the week-long conservation schools he attended both at county and state levels. Next summer, he is scheduled to serve as counselor at the state conservation camp. Mrs. Shirk laughs as she reviews their oldest son Jim’s accomplishments. “I wanted him to be well-rounded,” she said, “but I didn’t know he would go to the extent he has.” “He’s educated a lot of people that you can be an ag student, maintain top grades and excel in music, acting, and numer ous academic achievements. Jim has served as second student advisor, vice-president and presi dent of Environmental aga and this year he is president of production ag. He sings first bass in chorus, second base in orchestra and play ed the lead role in Garden Spot’s Production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” He belongs to the National Honor Society and is listed in “Who’s Who Among High School Students.” He plays varsity base ball, is a chess club member, active in his church youth group, and president of an Explorer’s Post. Jim admits he has tried about everything but still likes ag best. “I like to spread myself thin,” he admitted. “I haven’t found any thing I can’t do yet.” But there is one thing Jim did not enjoy doing at the five week summer session. “I had to do my own laundry,” he complained. “I made sure that I took enough clo thing along so that I needed to wash only twice during the five weeks I was there.” Although Jim believes it’s important to do a lot of things, he stresses that students should “put their energy where interests are. I would not take a desk job except if necessary to keep organized.” Since Jim shares a wide spec trum of interest, he found some of his specialty classes in genetics and in utilized new and environ mentally safe approach to pest control conflicted time-wise with the required core classes. As his required project at the Governor’s school, Jim researched “The Designing of an Anaerobic Digester for a Small Cattle Farm.” He explained that he designed a biogas engine that takes manure from the farm and utilizes or breaks down the menthane gas to produce electricity. Jim admitted, his experiment would not be finan cially practical for their family’s operation but that it would work for a larger farming operation where odor was a problem to the community. Jim said that his theory may help the Chesapeake Bay’s polution problems but that it will not solve them. He said, ‘The manure coming out of the digestor was practically odorless but it is not a method of disposal since it only slightly reduces the amount.” “It was quite a privilege,” Jim admitted, “that I was elected as chairman of the school senate where we met weekly to discuss resolutions to problems.” Jim loves the outdoors, hunting, fishing and wildlife and he consid ers himself an avid hunter. He points out that hunting is part of conservation which he endorses. For his wildlife interests, Jim received a gold metal for the state wildlife contest during FFA week in June. He placed first in the county. Jim likes the speaking opportun ities that FFA affords him. He gave talk at the FFA leadership weekend where FFA officers lay yearly goals. Under Jim’s leadership, his chapter placed in the top ten FFA chapters nationwide for their out standing BOAC program, For this accomplishment, Jim won both $4OO and $2OO awards for his chapter. To his benefit, the Grass land Chapter will pay $2OO tow ards Jim’s trip to the annual November FFA national meeting in Kansas City. The most pressing goal that Jim faces right now is maintaining his Robin Weiss always has plans a career in wildlife number one position of the senior class. “I want to be valedictorian,” Jim said, “It’s a close race between my best friend and myself. “But,” he added, “if I don’t make it, my best friend will and that will be just as exciting. More than winning, I like the competition that it gen erates between us.” Robin, who lives with her parents Peter and Karen Weiss at Manheim, is an example of many ag students. She has a sincere interest in the environment resour ces but she does not live on a farm. Robin, who is second in her class with a 4.0 average, intended to apply to the Governor School’s for Scientists. But when she read over the information, she noticed that the agriculture subjects suited her interests more than those listed under science. Robin dreams of being a wild life manager for a state or national park. “I always knew what I wanted to do since third grade,” she admits, but she doesn’t remember where she got the idea since neither families nor friends share her career goals. “I’m the only one from Manheim Central interested,” she said. Robin had a chance to work as a wildlife manager last fall when she spent a day at Middle Creek State Park. There, she got to see first hand that park managers’ responsi bilities can be extremely diverse. She said, “We were to spend a day watching blinds to make sure no one hunted in them.” Instead park officials received a report that a stolen car had been spotted in the area. Robin, with park personnel, jumped into a pick-up truck and went scouting for the stolen vehi cle. “We didn’t find it ourselves,” Robin said, “but police did.” Besides the required core clas ses at the summer session, Robin concentrated her efforts on wild life, fishery and forestry subjects. “It was very beneficial and I learned a lot,” she said. While there, Robin’s dream took an unusual twist. “We lis tened to a Peace Corps panel and I know that I would like to spend some time in the peace corps.” She forsees using her resource management training to help other countries. “There is a need for forestry positions” she said. “Many areas have no fuel because they cut down the trees which plays major havoc with the area’s natural resources.” For Robin’s project, she did an independent research on “Effects of Edge Habitat on Populations of her binoculars ready. She management. Different Bird Species.” She explained that this meant getting up at 4:45 to go to the edge of the woods and watch the diffe rent birds. She admitted, “Some days the first thing I heard was my roomate’s alarm going off at 6:15. Then I knew that somehow I had slept through or turned off my own alarm.” Robin admits she didn’t discov er any new scientific information but she was intriqued to discover that certain birds prefer the edge habitat and others prefer either the field or forest for their home. “It was an interesting experiment,” she said. “I learned that cows can be vicious animals and they were not pleased with my company in their pasture.” Numerous times Robin stressed, “The school is something I will remember a long lime. It was so neat to have 65 people who are all interested in essentially the same things.” Robin plans to attend either Vir ginia Tech or Penn state. For two summers, Robin has been part of the Appalacian Ser vice project which builds and repairs homes in rural, depressed areas. And in her sophomore year, she was selected as the only tenth grader from her school to attend a weekend Hugh O’brien Seminar which teaches leadership development. This honor society member is also involved in chorus and drama. She sings in a trio called “The Rainbow Connection.” After school, she helps at the Oasis youth Center in Manheim. She enjoys making wooden animals for yards. She said, “Not much isn’t my hobby.” The students’ five-week stay was highly structured and super vised. They were not allowed to visit another dorm floor not were they allowed to ride in a car other than their own parents. The full schedule produced a hectic summer but it convinced Jim and Robin that they were headed in the right direction with their career choices. For some, it may be tough to jus tify taking five weeks out of sum mer and forgo the earning .power that many students put to use dur ing summer months, but to these two achievers, the time was well spent They said, ‘The projects taugh responsibility and that ag covers more variety than cows and com. I’ll never forget it”
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