By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
A long-time supporter of the Bowling Green City Schools’ FFA is worried that the award-winning program could be collateral damage in the effort to secede to other school districts.
“That program is very near and dear to many people out here,” said Lisa Wilhelm as she sat at her family’s picnic table next to a newly planted soybean field in Milton Township.
“What happens when you take all this away from a program,” she said, pointing to a map of all the rural acreage that may leave the Bowling Green district and move to Patrick Henry, McComb, Otsego, Eastwood and Elmwood. “What are you doing to that program?”
Like many local families, multiple generations have carried on the FFA tradition at Bowling Green City Schools. Wilhelm’s husband was president in 1978, and three of their children were members. Lisa chaperoned the group during a convention in Indianapolis, and was named an honorary chapter member.
Wilhelm questioned if those collecting signatures, and those signing the petitions thought about the repercussions of changing school districts.
“That would be a sad consequence of these petitions,” she said.
The petitions are asking that almost all of Milton and Liberty townships shift to other school districts. Areas of Center and Plain townships will also be voting to leave Bowling Green schools.
“I’m just concerned about what’s going to happen with this nationally ranked program,” Wilhelm said. “I want people to stop and think.”
Residents may also want to research exactly what transferring to other school districts will do to their taxes, she said. Calls to the county auditor’s office showed Wilhelm that her family’s school taxes will see a notable increase if they are shifted to the Patrick Henry district.
She questioned if people signing the petitions were aware that their taxes would increase if they vote in August to secede from Bowling Green schools.
“I want to encourage folks to talk to their neighbors as I will do,” Wilhelm said.
Wilhelm recalled a lesson one of their sons learned under Mike Shertzer, the former Bowling Green FFA adviser and father of Stephanie Conway, the current FFA adviser and agriculture education teacher. Shertzer passed a petition around class for students to sign – with no explanation of what they were signing.
When the petition got to Wilhelm’s son, he declined to blindly sign.
“He learned that in FFA,” she said.
Bowling Green Superintendent Francis Scruci said there are no plans to dismantle the FFA program.
“That’s not on the table. That’s never even been a topic of discussion,” he said.
“That’s been a staple of the community,” Scruci said of the FFA program. “We will still have an agricultural community as part of Bowling Green.”
Conway, the FFA adviser, said she expects the program to continue.
“I think the chapter and what we’re doing will go on,” Conway said. “We do have a fair number of students who live in city limits.”
But even if the FFA program continues, Wilhelm predicted it would “vastly change” if much of the rural area of the district disappears.
Currently, the Bowling Green chapter is quite large – with about 130 members, Conway said. Though centered around agriculture, the program also focuses on leadership skills, personal growth, community service and future careers.
“We would want the FFA program to continue. There’s a lot of quality things that come out of there, certainly,” Scruci said.
Wilhelm agreed, explaining that her children benefited from FFA’s focus on public speaking, hard work, and achieving goals.
“That program has given kids confidence in who they are and what they can do,” she said. For some students, “it gave opportunities they didn’t know that they had.”
Wilhelm also said she has been pleased with the education her children received at Bowling Green City Schools.
“I want the same opportunities my children had at BG for my grandchildren,” she said. “My hope is that in speaking out, others will see the importance of speaking up by voting.”
