FFA livestock team raises goats and mentors kids By Kevin Hecteman
Members of the Mighty Honker Goat Program at Willows High School, left, prepare animals for judging by Sam Mattingly at the Glenn County Fair. Below, members of the team pair with special-education students to raise the animals, including this goat.
There’s a livestock program at Willows High School in Glenn County that, to its participants, is the G.O.A.T. The Northern California school’s FFA chapter raises its share of animals for the fair. It also raises the skills and confidence of its special-needs students and their mentor peers, as they team up to care for goats and each other. “This is a very rewarding program,” said Karli Lanzi, one of the program’s student mentors. “I feel that we are able to connect with the kids on a deeper level and learn a lot more about goats.” The Mighty Honker Goat Program— Honker is Willows High’s athletic nickname—pairs carefully selected mentors with special-education stu- dents. The pairs then spend several months raising a goat. When the Glenn County Fair rolls around in the spring, the student pairs and their four- legged charges hit the show ring as a team, culminating in the fair’s Junior Livestock Auction. One of those goats last school year was Tim, and one of the people look- ing after him was Franny Ruiz, a 10th- grade special-education student at Willows High. “I like playing around with animals, helping animals,” Ruiz said. Her fa-
vorite thing about Tim? “Just walking around with him and cleaning him and feeding him.” Molly Lex, Willows High’s special-ed- ucation teacher, said she likes the idea that her agriculture students “get to leave my classroom and go into a gen- eral-ed setting.” “Normally, when I mainstream kids into general-ed classes, we send an adult with them, or some type of supervision,” Lex said. “In this sense, I don’t send any- body. They get to go to this class purely on their own. They’re with their peers
and finally get to be independent.” The program was launched in 2017 when then-Willows High student MaKaylee Lindsey and her mother, Amy, came across a similar program in Southern California and brought the idea home. Since then, Diane Amaro— the parent advisor—has seen all four of her children take part as mentors. Her daughter Kate, now a senior, is the stu- dent advisor. “You would think that the spe- cial-needs kids would benefit from it,” Diane Amaro said, “but I think that the
mentors almost get more out of it than they do.” She said she believes the pro- gram “makes them realize that these kids are just like everybody else, and every- body has quirks. Just because you can’t see somebody’s quirks doesn’t mean they don’t have it.” The program was quite the learning op- portunity for Ruiz’ mentor Marissa Hunter, who graduated this past spring and is look- ing to become a physical therapist. “I’ve definitely learned a lot of patience and how to give my leadership on to these
See FFA, Page 13
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12 Ag Alert October 5, 2022
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