It Takes a Village: FFA Members Discover Their Future at the Northwest Ohio Ag Expo

For FFA members across Northwest Ohio, learning doesn’t stop at the classroom door. At the Northwest Ohio Ag Expo, members stepped into real-world agriculture by connecting with local businesses, exploring emerging technology and discovering how the lessons they learn every day tie directly to careers and communities around them.

The event was designed to bring together farmers, FFA members, young children and the broader non-agricultural community, but it featured two key experiences tailored specifically for FFA members. These included a hands-on leadership session led by a familiar face in the FFA community, and an expansive expo floor filled with exhibitors from local agricultural organizations and businesses.

Leading With Leadership: Building Your Village

Former Ohio FFA State President and 2024-25 National FFA Secretary Luke Jennings kicked off the day with an interactive session titled “Leading With Leadership.” Rather than a traditional lecture, Jennings filled the room with movement, conversation and collaboration by challenging members to think deeply about the communities that shape them.

In one activity, members formed “trains,” relying entirely on their teammates to guide them around the room as they collected colored sticky notes. This was a simple but powerful exercise in communication and trust. Later, members worked together in a Scrabble-style word activity and collaborated to write a story one sentence at a time, experiencing firsthand how teamwork produces stronger outcomes than working alone.

At the heart of Jennings’ message was a single idea: the village. He challenged members to reflect on the mentors and communities that had invested in them, and to ask themselves what they were giving back.

“If we want a village, we have to be a villager.”

— Luke Jennings, 2024-25 National FFA Secretary

Event reporter and Liberty Center FFA member Alyvia Meyer sat down with Jennings after his session to learn more. When asked about the concept of the village, Jennings said the idea goes far beyond FFA.

“I’ve been so fortunate to find such incredible villages, whether it’s through the FFA, through showing livestock, through my family, through friends or through my time as a student at Ohio State,” Jennings says. “In all these avenues, this village has uplifted me and supported me and made me into the person that I am. In turn, I’ve always tried to be a better villager and to be someone who supports other people and uplifts them.”

For member Jack Jones of Liberty Center FFA, the message really hit the mark. “I learned about how a community comes together with Luke Jennings,” he said when asked what stood out most from his time at the expo.

On the Expo Floor

While one group attended the leadership session, another group of FFA members fanned out across the expo floor. They visited exhibitors ranging from Truland, Remlinger and Paul Martin & Sons, to Becks, Ag Credit, Gerald Grain and multiple county Soil and Water Conservation districts. The exhibitors gave members a front-row look at the tools, technology and organizations driving agriculture in their region.

One of many highlights for numerous students was a drone display that drew repeated attention. “The drones over there for the crop dusting and stuff cost $40,000,” says FFA member Sutton Phillips. Brody McMillen of Holgate FFA added that he learned “the drones back there have GPS systems built into them,” while Shealin Schmeltz of Patrick Henry FFA discovered that “some of the drones can actually help find deer.” Carter Fritz, also from Holgate FFA, found out that “they use drones for cover crops and spraying.” For Oliver Panning, a stop at the Remlinger exhibit offered a new perspective: “I learned what Remlinger does, like what farm equipment and stuff they make.”

Beyond the machinery and technology, members also engaged with the educational exhibits. Event reporter and Liberty Center FFA member Owen Gebers caught up with Cole Plassman, who represented Fulton County Soil and Water, and whose booth offered a hands-on look at water quality issues.

“We’re doing lake in a bag,” Plassman says. “Participants will start with their clean lake, which is their hand sanitizer, and then they’ll go down through the line and pick up grass clippings and different pollutants to put in their bag. At the end, they’ll have their algae-filled lake.”

However, the educational exhibits were just one piece of a much larger puzzle that organizers had been assembling for months.

Something for Everyone: A Vision for the Future

Event organizer Morgan Baden, a Henry County Extension educator and a key member of the planning committee, helped coordinate the educational exhibits and FFA Day programming. Baden said the team of roughly 15-20 planners began working on the event immediately after the county fair wrapped up in August.

“There’s a little bit of everything for everyone,” Baden says of the expo. Along with the FFA programming and educational exhibits, the event also featured speakers geared toward adult farmers, with a corn pit and kiddie tractor pull to ensure the expo lived up to its goal of serving the entire community.

For these Ohio FFA members, the morning started with a simple question: “Who is in your village?” By afternoon, the answer had grown to include farmers, agricultural lenders, equipment dealers and conservationists from across Northwest Ohio. The expo didn’t just teach them about agriculture; it introduced them to the people who might shape their future.