Future Farmers Friday: Heartland student prioritizes family, farming and friendships

PATTON, Mo. (KFVS) - Students in the Heartland with a passion for farming often spend their high school years in the Future Farmers of America organization.

More often than not, they join to follow in their families’ footsteps.

As Isabella Foltz leads her FFA chapter as president, she looks back on the memories from her time at Meadow Heights.

Many of those moments are with her twin sister, Beth.

“Just about everything we do together honestly,” Foltz said.

“We play cards, we ride our horses together, we’re really into reading,” she said.

Foltz said her older brothers inspired her to join FFA.

“I went with them to national convention and it was really exciting and really cool to see all the people with their jackets and all this big group of people all together with a common purpose and everything, so it just really sparked that interest in me and I’ve kinda had a love for it ever since then,” she said.

She loves working with the animals on her family’s farm.

“We live on the same farm that my grandpa ran, so now my mom inherited it,” she said.

“We have cows and we have horses and we do hay in the summer.”

She works on the farm every day and there’s never a dull moment.

“There’s always someone that you could help out while they’re doing stuff,” she said.

While she learns more about the farm life at home, she also develops new skills in public speaking.

“I never would have been able to do that if I wasn’t in FFA,” she said.

Her table of awards is proof that hard work pays off.

She explains some of them involved lots of preparation.

“Definitely the Black River Coliseum speaking contest. That one was definitely the hardest,” she said.

Foltz has time to add to the collection and hopes to do that at her spring competition.

“I’m going to be a part of the food science team, so that’s something that we’re studying for and working on,” she said.

She said competing is her favorite part of FFA, because it brings new friendships.

“You meet all sorts of different people who have all different interests but you all have something in common,” she said.

That common goal is to work hard and be a team player.

As a team, Isabella and Beth hope to create more family memories on the farm.

Foltz plans to go to college after graduation and is considering becoming an agriculture teacher.

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