1/26/2012 12:00 AM
This October, a mom, dad, and their two sons piled into a car and drove through the night to Indianapolis for the National FFA Convention. Not an unusual sight, to be sure—except that all four family members were traveling to take their places as judges for the FFA Agricultural Proficiency Awards.
The family in question is the ever-humble Gottschalk family from Kimball, Minn., with two parents judging different dairy proficiencies and two sons judging different mechanical proficiencies. The commitment to FFA runs long and deep in the Gottschalk family, but they refuse to think of it as anything other than the natural order of things.
Scott, field sales leader for Land O’Lakes Purina Feed, and Astrid Gottschalk both grew up on dairy farms and were active FFA members in their youth. Scott said their sons, Trevor, Land O’Lakes Purina Feed employee, and Travis, employee at the Land O’Lakes cheese plant in Spencer, Wis., benefited from great mentoring in the FFA, and paying back that benefit was always assumed for the Gottschalks. Scott said he was raised—and he and Astrid raised their sons the same way—to give back for what you’ve received in life. “Our family motto is: If you’ve been blessed, pay it forward,” Scott said. “Give it back. Return it.”
This concept fuels the family’s deep involvement in FFA each year, even though judging the proficiency awards is no easy task. First there is the intensive pre-judging process, and then the in-person interviews at the National Convention. “We leave on a Wednesday night and drive through the night, and then judge all day Thursday,” Scott said. “It’s a lot of driving, and a lot of hours, but it’s worth it. Is there money in it? No. What are you going to get? Maybe help a kid do better and be more successful. It’s a pretty amazing thing to be a small part of that influence and the outcome.”
Read more in the latest issue of growingtogether® magazine page 13>>
