Event offers experience for FFA students
A little rain on what is traditionally the busiest day of the
San Benito County Fair resulted in a drop in attendance and
dampened the ground, but not the spirits of the participants and
visitors.
”
For so many people, the fair is a generational deal, from
attending to volunteering,
”
said Mike Cullinan, vice president of the fair’s board of
directors.
Event offers experience for FFA students
A little rain on what is traditionally the busiest day of the San Benito County Fair resulted in a drop in attendance and dampened the ground, but not the spirits of the participants and visitors.
“For so many people, the fair is a generational deal, from attending to volunteering,” said Mike Cullinan, vice president of the fair’s board of directors.
Nearly 17,000 visitors ventured down Airline Highway to the fairgrounds between Thursday and Sunday last week, representing nearly a 20 percent drop from 2007’s attendance. Saturday’s wet weather kept some potential fairgoers away, but some statistics were on the upswing.
“The PBR [pro bull-riding] event on Thursday was well-attended,” Cullinan said, “and the mud races, which this year replaced the demolition derby, seemed to be well accepted.”
A record number of Hollister Future Farmers of America (FFA) students showed their projects or animals at the fair, according to San Benito High School agriculture teacher and FFA Advisor Kelly Bianchi.
“There are three parts to the agriculture program,” Bianchi said. “FFA, classroom [work] and supervised agricultural experience (SAE) projects. The fair is one way to show off the students’ SAE projects.”
In addition to those projects, FFA students enter work-experience, community development, home improvement and gardening projects, among others, Bianchi said, as long as those projects are agriculture-related.
“The fair enables students to highlight their projects to the community and to the judges,” according to Bianchi. “The students compete against their classmates and other FFA members from Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.”
Allowing students to “show off their knowledge about their project and the skills that they have acquired” helps foster the FFA’s goal of developing students’ sense of responsibility and enhancing their communication and marketing skills, Bianchi said.
Check next week’s Pinnacle for complete judging results from fair competitions.
