The air at the Arkansas State University-Beebe farm was cold, a little misty and charged with energy Wednesday afternoon as 1,768 high school students competed in the 60th Annual AG Day, an invitational agricultural contest and judging event.
Students from FFA chapters across the state flocked to the ASU-Beebe campus to compete in a variety of skilled competitions, including horticulture, veterinary science, equine and livestock categories.
Chuck Wisdom, assistant professor of agriculture and event organizer for AG Day, said FFA chapters are invited to the contest if the chapter adviser either attended ASU-Beebe or has sent students to ASU-Beebe.
“This is an invitational contest,” Wisdom told the crowd of advisers. “This is a great school. I don’t care where you are in the state; if your students are going into agriculture, they need to come here first.”
Many of the students, faculty and staff at ASU-Beebe attended AG Day when they were in high school. Carol Johnson, interim vice chancellor of institutional advancement, said she is one of the many people who participated in AG Day.
“AG Day is so important to me because I am a product of this activity,” she said. “I compliment Chuck Wisdom on everything he’s done because it’s a huge undertaking.”
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the event, and the school honored one of the men who has been a part of AG Day since its beginning.
Wendell O. “Buddy” Phillips, a former assistant professor of agriculture at ASU-Beebe, worked at the school for 24 years
and served on the White County Fair Board for 45 years. He said he probably would not have gone to college had it not been for an encouraging agriculture teacher he had in high school, and Phillips hopes other teachers know how much positive influence they can have in a student’s life.
“They had me convinced in that big school (Searcy High School) not to go to college because I was too dumb, and I wouldn’t make it,” Phillips said. “I had an ag teacher who was the best motivator I’ve ever known. I sat in the first class he ever taught. He already had a master’s degree — I didn’t even know what that was. By the time I got out of there, there was a difference.”
Phillips said he has two photos of himself that show the change in his demeanor from his teacher’s influence. The first shows a young man who has unkempt hair and is wearing his first FFA jacket, with a ruffled collar. The second — taken four years later — shows a put-together FFA state officer.
“If it had not been for my ag teacher, I would have never finished school,” Phillips said. “About the 10th grade, a lot of boys at my school who didn’t have good grades just fell out. The very first day I sat down in his class, I knew I
wanted to be an ag teacher.”
Phillips said the greatest aspect about his career at ASU-Beebe was being able to train his students to go out and be teachers themselves.
The first AG Day event had fewer than 100 student participants, and Phillips said it is encouraging to look across campus and see the growth in both the school and the event.
“Just to reiterate what [Phillips] said, they started out with less than 100 students, and we have just under 1,800 students here today,” Johnson said. “What we do here at ASU is monumental every day.”
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.