North Platte Post/Sandhills Post/Panhandle Post
Paxton, Ne – If you’ve driven through the small town of Paxton in Keith County this summer, you may have noticed multiple seed corn signs south of Highway 30 on the west side of town south of town. That ground near the Paxton Schools Bus Barn is owned by the Paxton Consolidated School District and used to be farmed by local farmers in the area…until last year. The POST spoke with Paxton Consolidated Schools Industrial Arts Teacher Corey Turner and Sophomore Landon Drews in a sit down recently.
Mr. Turner said that Paxton Superintendent Del Dack had come to him two years ago, "he asked me if the FFA chapter would like to farm the ground down by the Schools Barn along Highway 30. I thought it'd be an opportunity for a kid. I had a senior year plant wheat the first year, and then spring of last year I went to Landon to ask of his interest. Then last fall he went to school board and they approved him to go ahead with it and he started getting the field, cleaned up. He's gone way beyond what I thought was gonna happen with it."
Landon Drews is a sophomore at Paxton, he was only a Freshman when he was asked about taking on this FFA project. Drews went before the Paxton School Board last fall to find out if he could get sponsors to help him plant his corn crop. He say's that was a big part of this FFA project. " I think that part was the most important, getting in contact that was pretty easy to do. I know most of the guys around here, you call one guy and say hey would you like to be a part of the Paxton FFA and support us and they just all wanted to be part of it. They had no worries about it. We have six different dealers that helped support us so we had Channel, DeKalb, Golden Harvest, Becks, Hoegemeyer, and Pioneer. Hi-Line Coop sprayed the corn and Harden Agency insured the crop from hail over the summer." Drews says it took them 5 1/2 hours plant that little peice of land because every time you went out, you had to come back and clean out the seed boxes on the planter.
In all it’s about 10 acres of dryland corn Drews and his volunteers planted, Mr. Turner has used Landon’s project to teach others in his class about putting a crop in the ground and tending to it, "I was able to take my students down. All of our FFA members got to go down and they helped clean out the planter and they got to ride in the tractor. We talked to different different dealers and they told them about the different varieties of seeds that they were putting in. So I mean that day right there was worth it to me just to get those other kids who don’t have the experience that Landon does. They don’t have the knowledge that he does in farming, and now they got some of that experience and knowledge firsthand.
On Wednesday, October 30th, Drews plans to harvest his crop. Claas, Nebraska Harvest Center, in Ogallala is donating a combine to come pick the corn. Mr. Turner said the day will be a fun filled day for the entire Paxton School system. Elementary kids plan to come watch part of the day, his FFA and agriculture students plan to help also. Landon has also reached out to locals in the community who are donating hamburger which they cook burgers for the kids that day at the harvest site.
Mr. Turner says after the crop is out they plan to mill some of the corn for feed that they’ll use to feed 3 cows the FFA tends too over the winter, and likely they’ll put the cows out on the stocks over the winter.
You can see a video of Landon’s FFA project here, and listen to a full podcast between Corey Turner and Landon Drews with Derek Beck below on our Kubota Podcast.
