Dan Hill has spent nearly 30 years teaching vocational agriculture at Sweet Springs High School, but will retire at the end of this year. He has spent his entire career at Sweet Springs High School, and was named Missouri's Vocational Agriculture Teacher of the Year in 2007. (Marcia Gorrell/Democrat-News) [Click to enlarge]

Sweet Springs' vocational agriculture teacher and FFA advisor Dan Hill is now beginning his last semester. He plans to retire this year after 30 years at the school district.

"It's time to let somebody else have all the fun," laughed Hill, who was named the outstanding agriculture instructor in Missouri in July 2007 by the Missouri Vocational Agriculture Teacher's Association.

Hill's recognition comes after a long history of accomplishments for the Sweet Springs FFA program. They have been recognized as a 3-Star chapter three times at the National FFA Convention and in 2006 was named a national finalist for the Models of Innovation Award in Community Development. Last year, the Sweet Springs Agriculture Department was recognized by the MVATA as the outstanding secondary program in the state.

Since 1978, the chapter has had 43 American degree recipients and 98 state degree recipients. Sweet Springs FFA members have served as area officers 25 times and state officers 5 times. In 2000, Doug Kueker went on to become a National FFA officer.

For Hill, however, the most important measurement of his accomplishments isn't the awards, it's the many former students he sees each day, working in the fields or at area businesses.

"There are many former students I have had that have become successful productive citizens. They are good mommies and daddies and are raising the next generation of good productive kids," he said. "That's the most important thing to me."

Hill was hired at Sweet Springs as a 20-year-old graduate of the University of Missouri, after finishing college in just three years. He had married his wife, Becky, in May, finished up his degree in June and July classes and then started the Sweet Springs job in the middle of July. He wanted to be in the Central District because it was located between his hometown of Doniphan and his wife's hometown of Tonganoxie, Kan.

It was a job that a professor told him he would never get, because the district supervisor wanted an experienced teacher for the job. The professor later said he might stand a chance if he was the one interviewing for the position.

Because of his small stature and young age, some questioned whether he could handle the job. In fact, in his interview, a school board member asked him how he would be able to handle the students.

"When you start out being 20 years old and not very big, I always had something I had to prove," he said.

About 10 years after taking the position the superintendent told him he was the only one that had applied for the job.

"I said, 'That's okay because you're the only one who offered me a job,'" he laughed.

Asked why he stayed in a smaller district, Hill admitted he did explore other jobs.

"I looked a couple times, but it doesn't take long to realize when you've got something pretty special as we do here. We've really got good kids," he said, adding that the people in the community have also been very supportive of what they were trying to accomplish.

"I've been extremely fortunate to have started here," said Hill. "I wouldn't trade it for anything."

Through the years, Hill said kids haven't really changed.

"I don't think kids have changed at all. Kids still have the same basic needs."

He also said basic teaching hasn't changed, adding what has changed is the amount of "red tape" and "political correctness."

"Sometimes common sense gets thrown out the window, because people are afraid to do what's right because it might look bad."

Even if the students haven't changed, FFA at Sweet Springs certainly has in Hill's tenure. In 1978, the program had 65 students, accounting for 30 percent of the student body, and only one of those FFA members was female. Today, the school's FFA program has 112 members or 76 percent of the student body and 47 are female.

"It was not the most popular program by any means," said Hill, speaking about the program in the beginning.

He also had to fight tradition, which said that females shouldn't take agriculture. Today he said the girls are now more likely to take the risks involved in becoming an FFA leader.

"On the leadership side, it seems like the girls by far outnumber the boys in wanting to take that risk to develop their leadership skills."

Another tradition when he first came was that only kids from farms or those involved in agriculture were allowed to take agriculture classes. He said that since there are fewer and fewer farms, the more important teaching agriculture to those without a "farm connection" has become.

"As you get a generation removed from the land, the more misinformed they are. I see agriculture as the basic educational need of all students."

Now, he said, he teaches much more "consumer agriculture" than production agriculture.

"You look at my students -- all of them are consumers, a few of them are producers, and the ones who are producers are going to get that education at home," he said.

Another key to his success has been trying to treat every child fairly, no matter who they are.

"I think it has to do with trying to treat every kid fairly and give every kid an opportunity to be successful in the program. We say, here it is if you want to take advantage of it."

He said as far as FFA and all the activities, his advice to young ag teachers is to concentrate on teaching.

"The key is take care of the things you're hired to do, do your job. You're hired to teach," he said. "I see too many young teachers that get too involved in wanting to do all the FFA stuff but they don't take care of things in the classroom. That's where they end up having problems."

Another change through the years has been adding another full-time agriculture instructor in 1996. For the last seven years, Brent Niemeyer has assisted Hill and will be taking over the program when Hill retires.

"I'm very comfortable with that. It makes it easy for me to retire, because I know it is going to be in good hands."

Hill said he has learned "everything" in his nearly 30 years of teaching.

"I've learned more than the kids have," he said. "I learned more the first year I taught than I ever did up to that point."

Contact Marcia Gorrell at marshallag@socket.net