Agriculture student earns national FFA proficiency award

Another Northwest Missouri State University student has earned a national award by growing her passion for agricultural education through profession-based experiences.

Lynn Dyer, a junior agricultural education major from Higginsville, Missouri, was recently named the National FFA Agricultural Education Proficiency Award winner, which recognizes FFA members who are exploring and becoming established in agricultural career pathways.

Lynn Dyer

Nationally, students can compete for awards in nearly 50 areas ranging from agricultural communications to wildlife management, through supervised agricultural experiences (SAE).

“I was very excited and very surprised,” Dyer said. “It was very encouraging and something I’ll look back on and remember as I begin my career in ag ed.”

Dyer began working on SAE projects as a high school student and was drawn to agriculture classes. She helped teachers plan for contests and assisted with student shop projects.

That work as a high school student earned her the proficiency award for Missouri FFA, which made her eligible to compete at the national level.

At Northwest, School of Agricultural Sciences faculty Jackie Lacy and Matt Bax offered encouragement and helped her prepare for the national award interview process. The skills she learned in classes transferred to her award preparation.

“I really love the School of Ag specifically, and how it kind of has this community feeling,” Dyer said. “All my peers, professors, everyone is here for each other. I can go to anyone anytime I need anything or have a question. I love how hands-on everything is as well. I feel like I’ve gained actual skills that I’m going to use in my career from my classes.”

Growing up on a beef cattle and row crop farm, Dyer has always been surrounded by agriculture. She saw the importance of agriculture in her community, and it soon became important to her as well.

After graduating from Northwest, Dyer’s goal is to become a high school agriculture teacher and FFA advisor.

“I definitely never planned to actually pursue a career in agriculture until I got involved in FFA in high school and met my ag teacher, Mr. Brock, who’s the most amazing person ever,” she said. “He made me want to be the person that he was for me to my students in the future.”

To earn the national proficiency award, Dyer worked over 1,000 hours in agriculture internships with Agriculture Education on the Move and Northwest activities, including career development events. She is also involved at Northwest in Sigma Alpha and Alternative Spring Break and serves as the president of Collegiate Farm Bureau.

“It just confirmed that I know I want to go into agricultural education, just through all the experiences I’ve had here - whether it be helping with career development events, getting to actually facilitate those rather than participating in them is always really cool,” she said. “Different events where I’m actually interacting with high school students has been really cool, as well as the content area classes I’ve taken have shown me that agriculture is what I’m passionate about and I’m excited to share that with my students in the future.”