Brand New Ag Building for Minico High School

On August 5^th an open house was held for the brand-new ag building at Minico High School in Rupert, Idaho. The building is equipped with classrooms, labs, and a welding shop, to provide students with hands-on learning in plant science, fabrication, and animal science, and with real-world experience in agriculture and related trades, preparing them for future careers. The building was funded through local donations and the Idaho Career Ready Students Grant.

Verbatim:

“Welcome to the Minico Agricultural, Science and Technology Building Open House. We have been anxiously awaiting this day for a very long time. We are happy to spend this short time with you this evening because you are who have made this building and this day a reality,” said Jaylie Timmon, President of the Minico FFA.

“Just thought I’d give a brief history of where this came from, because everyone drives by and they think it just came up overnight, but it didn’t. It's been a long time in the works. A little over 10 years ago, the school district purchased the ground with the thought of one day there being an AG building”, said Casey Stevenson, Agriculture Advisory Chairman.

 “The students here, the FFA students, they are tremendous students, and they finally have a building that that they can be proud of,” said Spencer Larsen, Superintendent of Minidoka County School District.

“This is the food science lab, so they're teaching about how they process food.”

“This is the plant science and floriculture lab. They'll do everything hands on in here.”

“…Allowing students to grow their knowledge, skills and creativity all in one place.”

“Learning more about the the biology of people and animals.”

“It is really exciting. It's going to be nice to have lots of space to work and do all of our activities. It's going to be amazing. Definitely much larger. There's more classrooms for the teachers,” said Summer Larsen, Minico Sophomore & FFA Sentinel.

“It's amazing, as we are the largest FFA as far as members go and it's really nice to finally have something that represents us that we can finally use and show off, said Oakley Lanier,  Minico Sophomore & FFA Reporter.

“Yeah, it's truly incredible. We've never had anything really this big or an opportunity for us to expand like we will be able to in this building. It's pretty cool that we get to have classrooms for every class and course and being able to move from room to room to have the space to do what we've always wanted, said Maybree Mitchell, Minico Junior &FFA Treasurer.

“I have kids who attend school here. So personally, for me it's really a huge deal because the facility that they've been in has been lacking. They've needed something with as many kids as they've got,” said Larry Johnson, Former President of the Minidoka County Farm Bureau.

“I've got older daughters that have graduated. My third daughter just graduated this year, pretty upset that she doesn't get to come to this building, but just seeing the growth in the FFA program and the ag program Minico is just huge. And so this building was really needed,” said Greg Walton, President of the Minidoka County Farm Bureau.

“I teach in the agriculture, science and technology program and I'm an FFA advisor. I am so excited to see this building come into reality. We finally have the correct space to teach the students the skills that they need in order to be successful in their future,” said Jessica Stapelman, Ag Teacher & FFA Advisor Minico High School.

“We now have over 1100 students who will pre-register for an AD class as their first priority. So we are teaching almost 1200 students each school year in this building and we have about 600 students who will claim that they are Minico FFA members. Over 150 of them that are very active and participate in a lot of activities,” said Stapelman.

“One of the things that I felt like I really lacked in the facility that we are moving from is, I felt like I lacked in power and water in order to do basic lab experiments. And they have delivered in a big way like I can actually teach a class, and have the things that I need in order to teach the students the things that I want them to learn. And this the jaw-dropping moment of of the whole tour is if you see that that AG shop, the welding shop. Like whoa, what is this. We are going from having five working welding booths to over 18, and so we're going to be able to more than triple the number of students we're able to have in those classes in a safe and productive manner,” said Stapelman.

“Some 60 plus years ago I went through the FFA AG program here at Minico and the building was the same, the old building, so it's been there a long time. I believe that as young men and young women learn about the technology, they get a jump up on everybody else that doesn't have that opportunity. They're ready to hit the ground running and there is so many careers available that tie right back to AG,” said retired farmer Cloy Jones, Past President of the Minidoka County Farm Bureau.

“We've had these tremendous students that that are just ready to to blossom and grow in our community and it's an ag community. We needed a facility like this to support the work that they're doing. This project wouldn't have happened without the support from this community,” said Larsen.

“And they made it work. I mean, this dream from decades ago became a reality , and it wasn't overnight. And there's many of you in this room that have been along that whole path,” said Stevenson.

“There was just some people in the community that knew it needed to happen and so four or five years ago, Rick Stimpson was a driving force and starting to get donations, whether it was a thousand, 25-hundred, 5 thousand, 10 thousand, everybody just started chipping in. Business owners that could see a need for, you know, career technical development. And then Farm Bureau was a big player, AG West farm credit. There was a couple other big donors,” said Walton.

“As the county board, we decided at that point that we wanted to support this building as much as we could. And so through membership dues and things like that and savings accounts that we had, we were able to donate $100,000 to the building here to get it done,” said Johnson.

“Thank goodness for the grant that we got In the state, that was a huge, huge driving force to get things really rolling,” said Walton.

“The efforts and the grants here in Minidoka School District and at Minico High School absolutely exemplified exactly what we were looking for in the grant process. Investments in career technical education matter for kids and they matter for communities,” said Debbie Critchfield, Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“The total cost of the building was $6.5 million. $4.9 million of that came from their Idaho Career Readiness Grant, as well as a little additional funding from the state that helped to to finish off the funding, and over $1,000,000 came from our community members,” Stapelman.

“On the very far west end of the building, as you were to walk in the front doors, there's a banner there. And in the middle is the FFA emblem, and around it is the donors. There's two banners on each side and that's to recognize everyone that's donated to this building,” said Stevenson.

“It's awesome to see all those names up there, but in all honesty, it doesn't surprise me. Just people always step up,” said Walton.

“Our students are capable. They are bright, they know what they want to do and when we make those connections with how we prepare them at this age, to the opportunities of a growing state in a growing area, incredible things will happen,” said Critchfield.

“We've got to quit telling our kids that if they want to be successful and happy, they need to move out of Idaho, we've got opportunities right here in our own backyard so that we can make connections to business and industry around the state,” said Critchfield.

“I hope that these students understand the support that this community has and the interest that they have in their success and well-being in their future. If they understood how much this community has put into them, I think they would be very humbled and take advantage of the opportunities that that has been provided,” said Stappelman.

“I think it's amazing that so many people were willing to help us out, like with this building. It's crazy how generous everyone is,” said Larsen.

“We have a very generous community. They are very willing to support the Minico FAA kids and our education and the things that we want to do and the dreams we want to chase and I'm very glad and I'm very grateful for them for making this possible and making this day come true,” said Lanier.

“We really do have a really supportive community and it's cool to see it all come together and be able to gather and really witness it all right in front of us,” said Mitchell.