Started in 2019 as a way to help Hampton ag students gain hands-on, real-world experience with raising beef cattle, the Hawk Herd has expanded and grown over the years, benefiting from local producers and others who have generously provided feed, volunteer hours, and other help to the program. Now its success has captured the attention of the York-Hamilton Cattlemen, earning ag teacher Joel Miller a trip to the association’s annual banquet to accept an award – photo Ron Burtz Aurora News Register
WRITTEN BY RON BURTZ, AURORA NEWS REGISTER
York News-Times Reprint
HAMPTON — The success of Hampton High School’s animal lab, the Hawk Herd, has captured the attention of the York-Hamilton Cattlemen, earning ag teacher Joel Miller a trip to the association’s annual banquet to accept an award.
Both Miller and Henderson area cattle feeder Alan Janzen will be presented with awards at the banquet set for Tuesday, Jan. 27, at the Holthus Convention Center in York.
“Joel Miller has really impressed the Cattlemen and parents with a beef cattle emphasis program he has developed in his classroom,” said association secretary Gerald Peterson. “His students are reported to enjoy the program, and it helps keep those students interested in livestock as an agricultural tool.”
Started in 2019 as a way to help Hampton ag students gain hands-on, real-world experience with raising beef cattle, the Hawk Herd has expanded and grown over the years, benefiting from local producers and others who have generously provided feed, volunteer hours, and other help to the program.
Pens and shelters located on the northwest side of the school and just yards away from the ag classroom, currently house five bred cows expected to calve this spring and two animals that are being fed up for slaughter to be used in Hampton’s school lunch program.
Miller says the program uses about three of the beefs provided by the Hawk Herd each year and the next one is set to go to the Aurora Meat Block to be processed in late February.
Since the herd has less than an acre at the school for all of its operations, Miller says the program has expanded to a “comfortable capacity,” but says he is happy with the fact that it has gotten to the point that it produces more than enough beef for the school lunch program every year. He said that’s the first priority for the program, but notes that the excess beef produced can be sold off to help support the program.
“We don’t have that much pasture ground here at school to graze them on, so we have been very fortunate in that we have received some donations of hay to help us feed during different times of year. And actually, this last summer, we had a couple people that actually had some pasture ground and we were able to take our cows off campus for part of the summer. They were able to graze on the pasture and save us a lot of feed costs. So the support from the cattlemen from the local area has been huge, as far as keeping it going.”
Mixing the rations
Miller said, while the feeding program for the herd is different from what might happen at a feed yard, the opportunities for helping the students learn how to figure rations are still there.
“You know, they need fed, they need nutrients … and it provides me opportunities to say, ‘Okay, we’re feeding this many head but if you were at a feedlot … if we’re going larger scale, then yes, we would need … a feed truck, and we’d be going through a lot more types of different operational management things.'”
The bulk of the rations fed to the herd, according to Miller, is ground corn.
“And then we get a protein pellet type supplement that we add to it, and depending on the size of the animal (and the time we want it finished for slaughter), tells us how many pellets we add to it,” he said. “And then, obviously, all of them get mineral as well. But the kids get to mix that. They weigh out the corn, and then we bring it into the shed, add the pellets and the mineral. Typically, Mondays are our mixed feed days, and so then we’re ready to go for the week.”
In addition to the donations of hay and feed from area producers, Miller said the program also got a boost recently from the new CVA white corn cleaning plant in Hampton.
“They have to find a place to go with their reject corn that doesn’t make the cut, so we’re getting our first load of that here this week, they’re going to donate that grain to us,” Miller said. “Obviously, it’s cracked kernels and things like that, which is perfect for what we’re feeding as far as that goes. So that’s going to help us, as long as we can continue to build that partnership, and they’re willing to continue to donate that white corn grain that doesn’t meet the food grade or whatever, but it’ll meet feed grade. So that’s kind of where we’re hoping to be able to cut some costs as well.”
As it turned out the donation provided Miller and his students with one more learning opportunity with regard to feeding cattle. “I actually made a call to a feed nutritionist with Aurora Coop about it,” he said. “You know, they’re sweet feeding white corn and yellow corn and I learned quite a bit about the sugar content differences, so I’ve been able to pass that on to the kids as well.”
Real-world learning
On a recent morning during his animal lab class, Miller had the students helping pull a front wheel off the program’s tractor used for feeding, because the tire needed repairing. That led to one of the students working to remove bale wrap that had become wound around the axle. Miller used that opportunity to demonstrate to his students that farm work goes far beyond feeding.
“You know, it’s not just weighing corn and dumping a bucket and pitching hay,” he said. “It’s the hands-on components that go with, you could call it normal farm operations, because there’s times where we’ve got to do some fence maintenance or fix some gates or upkeep on our tractor. I could have taken care of that tire myself, but that’s something the kids need to learn. ‘
“I don’t know how many of those out there this morning have ever changed a tire or taken a tire off, so giving them that opportunity to at least experience it, hopefully will help them in their lives, whether it’s agriculture related or they’re stuck along the side of the road with their family and have a flat tire. I think those life skills are valuable, and if I can use my program to teach them those, I need to. I know our future needs it.”
When Miller was first notified about the recognition from the cattlemen’s association, he was surprised, saying that he hadn’t considered he might be eligible for such an honor.
“But I’m definitely very appreciative that the cattlemen are paying attention to what I’m doing to hopefully do my part to improve the cattle industry – the beef industry – by preparing students to hopefully be involved in that industry,” he said, adding that he shares the award with his students and everyone else who has contributed to making the program what it is today.
A long list of awards
The recognition from the York-Hamilton Cattlemen’s group is just the latest in a long list of awards Miller and his program have received over the past few years.
In 2020 Miller was presented with the Outstanding Teacher Award from the Nebraska Agricultural Educators Association (NAEA) and last year he received both the Golden Owl Award as the state’s top FFA educator from the Nebraska FFA Foundation, NAEA and Nationwide Insurance and the Educator of the Year Award from Nebraska’s Natural Resources Districts.
In addition, more than 200 of Miller’s students have earned their FFA state degrees (and a number have won national degrees) and his land judging teams have qualified for state and national competitions several times as well.
Now in his 20th year at Hampton, Miller said he is happy to be a part of building the next generation of ag leaders for Nebraska and the nation.
“Without ag programs, without teachers, kind of promoting it, there’s a concern we’re not going to have quality and qualified people to take over some of those positions that are definitely needed,” he continued. “Our food supply is kind of important, and it starts from the ground up. And you’ve got to have people on the ground working with the animals and I think most ag teachers would probably echo those same type of comments.”
