Ag teacher wins state honor

Even though Melissa Goers has been teaching for only four years, her ambitious agenda for the Gillett High School agriculture department has earned her a top state honor.

At the 78th Wisconsin FFA Convention in Madison June 12 she was named Wisconsin Agriscience Teacher of the Year.

To apply, Goers needed to answer six essay questions and send pictures that captured her class in action. The effort paid off.

“A lot of my students were down there and were able to see me on the other side, because usually I’m seeing them getting the awards and helping them. It’s also neat to show them because we always set goals every summer as an (FFA) officer team, and that was a goal that I set last year,” Goers said.

Achieving that lofty goal was a long time coming. Goers grew up on her family’s dairy farm outside of Shawano, and knew since high school that she wanted to pursue agriculture education.

Goers attended UW-River Falls and graduated in 2001 with a degree in agriculture education and agricultural marketing communications. She was hired by Gillett High School in 2003 just two weeks before the first day of school.

Goers found the school offered more traditional agriculture production courses, but she had a new vision for the agriculture department, and started incorporating more agriscience concepts into the curriculum.

“I don’t teach them how to milk a cow and how to plow and that kind of stuff,” she said. “It’s a lot of the science-based activities that we do to try to get the students prepared for careers in what agriculture is now.”

Students responded well.

“She does a real good job of making sure we do labs and actual hands-on activities,” said Curtis Horsens, 17, Goers’ student and Gillett FFA president. “We take field trips to different farms or the horticulture class will take one to the flower shop in town just to get out in the real world and see how all the stuff we learn works.”

Goers says students have tried soil and water testing, and even artificial insemination. They work with an aquaculture tank and in a greenhouse learning about crop and soil science. An artificial insemination technician and a ferrier visit the class, and students visit farms.

Several agriscience courses have been added at Gillett, including Equine Science, Veterinary Science and Aquaculture. Large Animal Science, Goers’ most popular course, attracted so many students that the class was expanded two sections.

“It’s neat to see that the kids are interested in it, and it’s not just ‘the farm kids,’” she said.

As of now, Goers teaches 14 courses on a two-year rotation to grades 9 through 12, and an exploratory, nine-week class for eighth-graders.

The agriculture classes aren’t the only positive changes that Goers has made.

“She’s the FFA adviser, so the FFA does a lot of stuff that correlates with what she’s teaching,” Horsens said. “When she came, the FFA really improved, so it was really worth joining it, and opened a lot of new opportunities to me.”

Because she won at the state level, Goers is now in the running to be a national finalist for the Agriscience Teacher of the Year Award. She will know in August if she is a finalist, at which point she will have to do more interviews and presentations at the national level.

The National FFA convention is held in October in Indianapolis, Ind. All finalists receive a $500 stipend to spend on equipment or resources that will help integrate more agriscience into their classrooms.

For now, Goers remains focused on her students. This week she is on a retreat with FFA officers facilitating leadership and officer training and team-building activities.

“It’s always something different. I’m always trying to update things, and keep it so that the kids are ready to join the ag force.”

Ag teacher wins state honor

Even though Melissa Goers has been teaching for only four years, her ambitious agenda for the Gillett High School agriculture department has earned her a top state honor.

School board members visit prospective leader's turf

A delegation of Shawano School Board members visited the Suring School District on Tuesday as part of the selection process for a superintendent to replace the retiring Rich Hess.

First person charged in burglary spree

One person has been charged so far in connection with a burglary ring in Shawano and Oconto counties.