Some People!

[pjkjr4]

Thought you folks might find this interesting. I've known of this situation for over a year now.

http://newsok.com/yukon-vo-ag-program-faces-allegations-of-skimming/article/3680282

 

[rf21970]

Love this quote
“We knew the skimming had been going on for a long time, but not to the extent that they were skimming us,” he said. “I can afford it, but it's still wrong."

So a little cheating is ok?? But a lot of cheating is not??? It's ok until it happens to you???

I'm curious as to how this program works. Are all steers purchased from the Vo-Ag program? Free feed ???

 

[Telos]

This is a well established ag program to the adjoining county I grew up in. Very disappointing.

 

[firesweepranch]

Love this quote
“We knew the skimming had been going on for a long time, but not to the extent that they were skimming us,” he said. “I can afford it, but it's still wrong."

So a little cheating is ok?? But a lot of cheating is not??? It's ok until it happens to you???

I'm curious as to how this program works. Are all steers purchased from the Vo-Ag program? Free feed ???

When I taught high school ag (now teach college), we did something like this (not the skimming part!). Our FFA and 4-H kids would purchase the pig and feed through the chapter for the same cost. The reason behind this was theft. All fair projects were kept on the high school farm and we had a big problem with feed getting stolen (with beef, pigs and lambs). So we set it up where everyone fed the same thing, and it ended the problem. If you did not like the feed we fed (it was Mormans), you had to take your animal off the school farm and raise it elsewhere. Pigs were raised in groups of 2 per pen, and the kids set up a cleaning/feeding schedule that was posted for the advisors to see.  Lambs were penned separately, but the feed was kept in trash cans so kids had access to it at all times. All animals had to be fed and pens cleaned before school and by a certain time at night, so the advisor in charge could inspect twice a day to make sure care was given. All of our fairs were terminal, so if the child could not pay for the project at the beginning, when they sold the project they paid the chapter back for the purchase price. As a chapter, we never went in the hole, but never made money.  We bought projects as a group, and bred many of them ourselves (we had a herd of 20 ewes and 6 or 8 sows). It worked really well, because no student was left out because of money. We always collected the money, because if we had a no pay the school district went after the parents (but that never happened). I had times where I would go to the bank with my students and cash their fair check and they would pay the chapter immediately with the money though.  But, our population was 97% migrant families that were from Mexico, so money was tight for them. This way of doing things gave all kids a chance to raise a fair project and make a little money. I have had NUMEROUS students come back to me years later to thank me for giving them an opportunity to do something that they never would have been able to without the chapter loan program.

 

[Show Dad]

What gets me is that whole last section on cheating. It actually chronicles animal mistreatment in an ag program! Amazing that PETA or HSUS hasn't showed up to the school. All the ammunition they need is in that article.

You know its things like this that will divide us and then the animal rights crowd wins. Does it take a ballot initiative to ban livestock shows to wake us up?

 

[GONEWEST]

Anyone ever heard of making a steer wild by feeding it manure? Anyway this is so typical of how news is reported these days. What cheating had to do with this lawsuit is beyond me. The reporter had to sensationalize his article by citing incidents of animals being mistreated going back 30 years? How many hundreds of thousands of animals shown have had the royal treatment during all that time from kids and families that care about the animals? A kid hosed a hog in 1995, and this is news today? REALLY?

Going back to the original intent of the article. Does this mean that Ag teachers can't be steer traders? I could name 10 off the top of my head right now that do it. One had 3 online sales last year. I don't know as I see much difference in buying a $7,000 steer from an ag teacher who gave $2750 for it than buying it from Bonham who gave $1500 for it ? I must be missing something. Do teachers take an oath they won't trade steers? How is this worthy of investigation?

 

[showsteerdlux]

Anyone ever heard of making a steer wild by feeding it manure? Anyway this is so typical of how news is reported these days. What cheating had to do with this lawsuit is beyond me. The reporter had to sensationalize his article by citing incidents of animals being mistreated going back 30 years? How many hundreds of thousands of animals shown have had the royal treatment during all that time from kids and families that care about the animals? A kid hosed a hog in 1995, and this is news today? REALLY?

Going back to the original intent of the article. Does this mean that Ag teachers can't be steer traders? I could name 10 off the top of my head right now that do it. One had 3 online sales last year. I don't know as I see much difference in buying a $7,000 steer from an ag teacher who gave $2750 for it than buying it from Bonham who gave $1500 for it ? I must be missing something. Do teachers take an oath they won't trade steers? How is this worthy of investigation?

Couldn't say it better. My guess it the concern could be the school district paid for the animals and didn't get the profit. That'd all I could guess.

 

[rf21970]

Anyone ever heard of making a steer wild by feeding it manure? Anyway this is so typical of how news is reported these days. What cheating had to do with this lawsuit is beyond me. The reporter had to sensationalize his article by citing incidents of animals being mistreated going back 30 years? How many hundreds of thousands of animals shown have had the royal treatment during all that time from kids and families that care about the animals? A kid hosed a hog in 1995, and this is news today? REALLY?

Going back to the original intent of the article. Does this mean that Ag teachers can't be steer traders? I could name 10 off the top of my head right now that do it. One had 3 online sales last year. I don't know as I see much difference in buying a $7,000 steer from an ag teacher who gave $2750 for it than buying it from Bonham who gave $1500 for it ? I must be missing something. Do teachers take an oath they won't trade steers? How is this worthy of investigation?

The last part of the article is obvious sensationalism and attempt to appeal to the animal rights readers.

I am 100% for free markets and capitalism. I don't care if you are an ag teacher or a broadway actor, anyone can be in the cow business and the cattle will speak for themselves as far as quality goes. However, if that ag teacher is also serving as an adviser/manager of a program and it's participants and abusing or taking advantage of that position for personal gain that is another story. According to the article the steer was sold to the program and not the ag teacher.

 

[twistedhshowstock]

I dont know! I think there is a lot of information missing in this report.  Sounds to me like maybe somebody got mad that they didnt get what they wanted so now they are throwing a hissy fit.  I am not saying there is no wrong doing, but first off.  Did the FFA Chapter purchase the steer or did the ag teacher purchase the steer?  If the ag teacher purchased the steer with his own money and then sold it, then he wasnt acting on behalf of the school so could charge whatever he wanted.  If the FFA program purchased the steer then why did they pay the ag teacher, unless they meant they wrote a check to the chapter and then handed it to him.  I have never heard of an FFA program paying to feed a students project, if the students dont have to buy feed throughout the year, maybe that $7,000 was a total cost for purchasing, housing, and feeding the animal.  Maybe the students who were charged for feed opted out of this one time lump sum payment and payed monthly, maybe they payed in instalments and are now just saying they were being charged for feed in order to help this law suit.  Anyone find it funny that the only "mistreatment" they can point out at this barn is feeding manure and rocks to make the steer crazy, which by the way I have never heard of in my life. Yet they are referencing every bad practice known in the show ring in this article?  The only situations I know where the school district buys animals are set up where the students sign up to show and the teacher goes out and buys the number of animals needed. The total cost is divided among the number of students showing, then the students draw numbers to see who gets to pic in what order.  The cost ussually isnt that off because the teachers shop to find that many animals of similar quality instead of just buying all the animals they can at one cost, this way it depends on who works the hardest mostly in how well they do.  So for that reason, if all students payed say $3,000, if you went to the producers that sold them, yes one of the steers may have actually cost less, but some may have costs more.  I agree this story sounds very fishy, but I dont think its just the teachers who seem suspicious here.
What I will say is batten down the hatches boys, because mainstream media just made known all the dirty little unethical things that happen in the show industry, its about to get attacked from all sides.

 

[chambero]

I know plenty of people in this situation and like most of them.  However, if I was a school board member or superintendent I would not allow ag teachers in my employment to do it. There is an inherent conflict of interest.  Tax dollars are paying your salary to help kids with their projects.  Your profit is your salary.  I can guarantee you more than a few teachers and agents do discriminate against kids - in the classroom and with help - that do not buy from them.  It might not even be intentional always, but with any business you have to take care of your customers first.  More often than not, they are using school/county trucks and trailers to go find those calves they are making a profit on.

 

[chambero]

The other grey area in Tx is teachers//agents with kids.  One thing I've run into selling is teachers demanding very cheap prices for their own kids in return for bringing their students to you.  Nothing really wrong with it, but some could be a little more subtle about it.

 

[DLD]

I've been aware of this situation for quite some time as well.  As usual with anything from the mainstream media, it's totally one sided and incomplete.  Not to say that it's all lies, but it's sensational journalism, as should be obvious to anyone here from the latter part of the story.  It seems pretty obvious that both the reporter and the father quoted in the story don't know much if they expect us to believe the line about "feeding rocks and manure to show calves to make them wild"...

I'm not saying that they weren't done wrong somehow, some way in all this (not saying that they were either).  But by all appearances to those of us nearby who've been watching this for some time, the biggest thing going on here is a bad case of jealousy and poor sportsmanship on the part of some folks who believed that spending more money should mean that they were going to win.

I believe that the project purchasing is done through an account operated by the booster club... Not to say it'd be impossible for an ag teacher to write himself an unexplained check, but it would seem that it'd be pretty easy for others to see if it happened.

 

[ZNT]

I know plenty of people in this situation and like most of them.  However, if I was a school board member or superintendent I would not allow ag teachers in my employment to do it. There is an inherent conflict of interest.  Tax dollars are paying your salary to help kids with their projects.  Your profit is your salary.  I can guarantee you more than a few teachers and agents do discriminate against kids - in the classroom and with help - that do not buy from them.  It might not even be intentional always, but with any business you have to take care of your customers first.  More often than not, they are using school/county trucks and trailers to go find those calves they are making a profit on.

I agree. 

There is a lot of grey area when Ag teachers and Extension agents are trading livestock to the same kids they are advising.  I fully understand that they do not get paid nearly enough for the amount of time they spend in the barn, or on the road with kids at shows or looking for calves, but that is part of the job.  If they want to make money by being a livestock trader, then they either need to do that, or find a job that does not create an environment that can be construed as a conflict of interest.  There are so many ways this conflict can happen that I will not go into them, but Chambero does touch on a few of them.

 

[OLD WORLD SHORTIE]

Yep, i feel for those Ag teachers working their tails off for the amount they are paid.  Although i have met some that do next to nothing so, they are probably making what they should be. I don't know if its apathy or a lack of knowledge but i am starting to see how one can become complacent with doing nothing in a govt job babysitting a bunch of snot nose kids that really have no respect.

 

[kfacres]

Yep, i feel for those Ag teachers working their tails off for the amount they are paid.  Although i have met some that do next to nothing so, they are probably making what they should be. I don't know if its apathy or a lack of knowledge but i am starting to see how one can become complacent with doing nothing in a govt job babysitting a bunch of snot nose kids that really have no respect.

I agree-- why do you think they get that way?  They are lazy teachers who don't want to put the extra effort into it.  The good teachers, don't care-- they're not in it for themselves-- pay is pay.. who cares, it's just money?