FFA Advisor Promotes the ‘Tools’ for Success.

“As freshmen, when you come into an Ag. Science class, it’s kind of hard to grasp the concept of the FFA, what the FFA is, what it means to people, and how valuable it is,” Justin Reynolds said.

Reynolds has been an Agriculture teacher at Buford High School for six years. With this job comes the responsibility of being an FFA advisor. Reynolds coaches and supports his FFA members including his Tool Identification team. 

After graduating from Clemson, Reynolds entered the Buford community with a goal to show his students the importance of FFA. “There are certain contests we utilize that open up those doors easier, and one of those competitions is Tool Identification,” he said. Reynolds shows his team just how valuable this competition is. 

With each school year comes a brand new team of first year Ag. students. “Yeah, it’s a good skill to have in life to know how to identify basic tools, be able to identify different tools, but that’s not really the reason we push students to compete,” he said. 

Students often struggle to get involved with the FFA, so doing competitions such as Tool ID is a way for them to understand what comes with FFA. “We push students to compete because we believe that they need to see the value of the FFA and one of the easiest ways to find early value in the club before you know what you want to do is to get involved with a simple competition like Tool ID,” Reynolds said. 

Tool ID is often a gateway to really get involved with more competitions and even become an FFA officer. “Students compete, they win, and then they get hungry for more competition and more winning,” he continued. “Often, it leads to a four year career of FFA competition and FFA involvement which is very important to us.” 

This year, Reynolds’ team finished fifth. “Our Tool ID team this year was able to go to region. Honestly, they were underprepared by me as a teacher, but they were able to place fifth and they were able to compete in the state Tool ID.” The team did not place in the state competition but Reynolds is still impressed “They still got the opportunity; they got to travel, they got to see what the FFA is all about and the community that surrounds it.” 

This competition has motivated these students to get truly involved in FFA. “Several of them are talking about wanting to be officers and obviously pursue other CDEs next year,” Reynolds said. As an advisor, Reynolds loves to hear this positivity from his students. “That’s the ultimate goal and the ultimate goal was achieved through this competition.”