Batesville High School FFA member Kyler Stolarik does not have a typical agricultural background, but that hasn’t stopped him from working his way up the FFA chain.
Stolarik, who will graduate June 1, was recently elected as the Arkansas FFA state vice president for the Eastern District.
“I actually come from a nontraditional ag background,” Stolarik said. “My mom is a special-education director/teacher at a local school. My dad is a superintendent of engineering at a manufacturing plant in our area. I had no immediate ag background until the eighth grade. I still developed, somehow or another, a love that I’m never going to forget within agriculture and FFA.”
Stolarik is the son of Rick and Kim Stolarik.
Kyler Stolarik said that when he was in the eighth grade, some friends asked him to take an agriculture class.
“I gave it a shot,” he said. “I was introduced to a lot of things I had never done before. I started doing leadership competitions and events, and it’s all come from there — being chapter officer, working my way up to being chapter president, then eventually being elected into a high state office.”
Stolarik said he and his FFA chapter from Batesville attended the state convention in Hot Springs in April. That’s when he ran for the state office.
“We start out with the nomination process, and the state board interviews all potential candidates,” he said. “They recommend six people who they believe would be the best fit to do the jobs and duties throughout. Once they recommend those six people, it is announced at the first session of the state convention. Then you have two days to campaign and try to convince people in different chapters to vote you in for your position.”
Stolarik said being elected is a huge honor for him, as well as for Batesville High School.
“I was not only being elected as a state officer, but I was also being elected as the first state officer from my high school,” he said. “My chapter has been around for 71 years. We’ve never had a state officer. It was a way to say — I hate to say it selfishly — but I’m leaving my mark on this school. I was the first state officer. There have been others who have tried and did a good job, but to be the first one elected is pretty cool.”
Taylor Donnelly, an agriculture teacher at Batesville High School and the FFA sponsor, agreed with Stolarik.
“We had a student run a couple of years back and didn’t win,” she said. “There have been some in the past. With being such a small school, those elections are really dominated by the larger schools, which have more resources.
“I’m really proud of him, really excited. There was a short moment of hysteria among chapter [members] when he was elected. There was a lot of cheering and crying. We were really excited for him. It was such an honor for us. He wanted it so badly and worked so hard on it.”
Now that he’s been elected vice president for the Eastern District, the hard work starts for Stolarik.
“One of the biggest things we do is lead the camps, trainings, conferences and conventions that happen throughout the year with Arkansas FFA,” he said. “There are 14,000 members across the state now. We help facilitate all the competitions and events. Our job is to do anything necessary to keep the organization running throughout the year.”
He will also be busy with his freshman year of college while serving in his officer role.
Stolarik plans to attend Arkansas Tech University in Russellville this fall.
“State office and college are things that, if you look at them on paper, don’t work well together,” he said. “The state office calendar, the amount of stuff we have to do, is jam-packed throughout the year. I think, in the summer, I’m going to be working so many camps and stuff and the Arkansas FFA Camp that I will be home maybe three weeks out of the summer. We stay pretty busy.”
Stolarik said he’s already communicated with his potential professors at Arkansas Tech about his busy schedule with FFA.
“They worked with me a lot to make sure that I’m going to get done what I need to do,” he said. “All of our state officers, school is our No. 1 priority. We have quite a bit of stuff we’re going to be focusing on throughout the year, but school is our top priority. We like to make sure we can balance everything out.”
Donnelly said Stolarik just loves being involved with FFA.
“I’ve been teaching at Batesville for three years,” she said. “Kyler is one of those kids who has literally been in my room every morning and sometimes all day. We have spent a lot of time together working toward this.
“He’s very honest and outgoing. He never turns down a challenge or an opportunity for anything. That is why he wanted to run for state office.”
Stolarik said he never really thought of himself as a mentor to the younger members of the Batesville FFA chapter, but as his senior year winds down, he knows that he is.
“I’ve noticed it more in my time as I finish,” he said. “I like to think of myself as a mentor, and I like to think that I’m giving good advice that will stay true with them.
“We had our final banquet a few days ago, and I never realized the impact that I had on some people until it was time for me to make my final goodbyes. The amount of people in the room who were affected by me — you don’t realize it. It’s not necessarily why we do things in FFA. We’re not doing it for the attention. For me, it’s been more of an impact than I realized.”
Stolarik said he enjoys all things associated with FFA.
“Some of the things I’ve done over the years are forests, electricity competitions,” he said. “The things that I focused on my junior and senior years were ag communications, where we did a lot of online nontraditional ag stuff. We were doing video design, Web design, opinion writing for news and a few other things like that. That is something I really enjoyed, something I became very passionate about my last year years in FFA.”
While in high school, Stolarik has also participated in robotics.
“I was one of the team captains during my senior year,” he said. “Outside of high school, I’m heavily involved in Boy Scouts. I’m working on finishing my Eagle Scout project soon and, hopefully, getting my Eagle rank before I turn 18 in the middle of May.”
Stolarik said he got started in Scouting with the Cub Scouts when he was in the first grade and a group of older students came to the school to talk about Scouting.
“I had never really been camping, but I loved being outside,” he said. “I remember going to my dad and saying that there was a meeting after school, and I wanted to sign up for Cub Scouts.
“I’ve literally been doing it ever since. Every single person in my family has been involved with a Scouting function in some way or another.”
The Boy Scouts of America recently changed its policy to allow girls to join the organization, and Stolarik’s sisters are part of the pilot program. They include McKenna, 13; Ainsley, 11; and Laurel 8.
“My sisters have always been a part of the camps we were running, me and my dad,” he said. “They are actually part of a pilot program for girls in Boy Scouts. It’s a program I’m proud to be involved with. It gives opportunities, and it doesn’t matter who you are or what you are. It’s like FFA. It teaches not only how to be a leader but how to be a person.”
Stolarik’s Eagle Scout project is to build a concrete pad with an awning at the Community School of Batesville, where his mother works. The concrete pad, which will be 25 by 52 feet, can be used as an outdoor classroom.
“I just secured the final funding and estimates, and we’re going to break ground in two weekends,” he said.
Stolarik plans to double-major in mechanical engineering and nuclear technology at Arkansas Tech.
“Mechanical engineering was something that I’ve always been interested in since the third grade,” he said. “I said I was going to be an engineer, so I’m going on to college to do that. I’ve always had an interest in nuclear technology. Whenever I found out that it was a program option at Tech, I was able to work it into my schedule and make the decision to double-major in that.”
Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.