By SUSAN MYKRANTZ

Ohio Correspondent

BIG PRAIRIE, Ohio — When FFA members from across the country gather for the national convention in Indianapolis this month, two members of the West Holmes, Ohio, FFA chapter will be among those honored.

Logan Schlauch and Jayme Pennell placed first in their respective areas during the Ohio state convention, earning them a trip to the national convention. The journey is a long one for proficiency award winners – they start at the chapter level and move on to the district level, where they are reviewed and candidates for the state level are selected.

Students are required to turn in extensive records and documentation for their projects, as well as photos. At the state level, entrants are interviewed on their projects before the finalists are selected. The state winners are sent to the national level where they go through additional review and interviews.

Schlauch won in the area of Agricultural Processing for work in his family’s Velvet View Farm Yogurt processing operation. Pennell won in the area of Wildlife Management.

Schlauch is the fourth generation to grow up on the family dairy farm in Big Prairie. He is involved in the operation along with his parents, Aaron and Brandi, wife Taylor, their daughter Kassidy, and brother Wyatt, in farming 200 acres, raising corn and hay to feed their 150 Holsteins – 100 in the milking herd and 50 replacements.

Most of the milk from the dairy goes into the yogurt processing operation, which is marketed under Velvet View Farms Yogurt to foodservice departments at several northeastern Ohio colleges and universities.

Schlauch is also a second-generation FFA member. “My dad was in FFA,” he said. “I thought it was mainly for farm kids, but I found out differently.”

During his time in FFA, his Supervised Agricultural Experience projects included dairy, home improvement, and Agricultural Processing. He also participated in dairy and soils judging, as well as the tractor troubleshooting contest.

As a member of the third-place dairy judging team and fifth-highest individual winner, Schlauch and his teammates earned a trip to judge at the Eastern States Exposition. He has also shown cattle at the county, district, state, and regional levels. These include winning Showman of Showman at the 2017 Ohio State Fair; placing third in his age division at the Pennsylvania All American Dairy Show; exhibiting the Reserve Champion at the Ohio State Fair Open Brown Swiss Show; and teaming up with Wyatt to earn Premier Breeder honors at the Spring Dairy Expo.

He holds his state FFA degree and is finishing the paperwork for his American FFA degree in 2020. He credits his FFA experience with giving him an understanding of other parts of the ag industry, as well as helping him develop leadership skills and teaching him to keep good records on his projects.

“FFA taught me how to run a business and talk to customers,” explained Schlauch. “I have learned how to tell our story about our farm and how we process our yogurt.”

He focused on the yogurt operation since he started his FFA career, and over the years his responsibilities have increased from entertaining his younger brother to cleaning equipment, to making and delivering yogurt. He not only delivers the yogurt, but also the story of how it is produced – from the time the milk comes out of the cow until it is processed and delivered.

“We want our customers to understand that we operate a working farm,” he said.

While this is his first trip to nationals with a proficiency award, Schlauch has had some success at the state level in the area of Dairy and Home Improvement. He placed second with that project, which included building a farm office and meeting room using wood from the farm’s woodlot or recycled from old buildings on the farm.

Pennell is receiving the Proficiency Award in Wildlife Management. He considers himself lucky to be born and raised in Holmes County. “I was fortunate to grow up in a rural county and have the opportunity to live on family land,” he noted.

For him, joining FFA was something he always wanted to do from the time he was a young student, and because he loves agriculture it was a natural choice.

As an FFA member, he has participated in ag sales and job interview contests, as well as nursery landscape, forestry management, and soils. He is serving as his chapter president and was a student advisor last year.

“I have benefited in so many ways,” said Pennell. “I have been given information and granted awards that I would have never received without FFA. I have also been given many roles of leadership.”

He said selecting the area of Wildlife Management made sense because he was given the opportunity to develop 11 acres of family land into a wildlife haven.

“My joy for the outdoors has formed me into wanting to do this,” he said. “I have planted trees, planted food plots, introduced surrounding wildlife, and have created water sources.”

But at the same time, the project was not without challenges. Pennell said that weather conditions definitely made things challenging to get food plots and trees planted and established during planting dates because heavy rains flooded the ground.

And, like many FFA students, his project has given him a plan for his career path. “My future plans include getting a bachelor’s degree in the area of Wildlife Management and use gained knowledge from this project in my field of work in the future.”

LOGAN SCHLAUCH advances to the national level of FFA competition in the area of Agricultural Processing.

(Susan Mykrantz photo)