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Last updated on Thursday, November 8, 2012
(ORLEANS) - 21-year-old Nick Fleenor, a 2009 graduate of Orleans High School, is the school’s most recent recipient of the American FFA Degree.
Membership in FFA can continue past a student's high school graduation. Fleenor is a junior at Purdue University.
While focusing on higher education, he also has worked to complete requirements for the FFA Degree. To qualify for the award, a recipient must have completed what's called a "Supervised Agriculture Experience Program."
Fleenor's program was tied to two areas: forage production and wildlife production and management.
Satisfying the forage production component included some of his earliest work in agriculture, when he helped Orleans-area farmers, primarily Bill and Tim Busick, put up hay.
The wildlife component took place at Dale and Bryan Fleenor's farm. They are Nick's parents. Dale is a quail hunter and Nick notices the bird's population was down, so he created a suitable habitat for the quail on the farm. That project placed first in the state competition and went on to nationals.
He also credit's his success to Lee Gerkin. Nick did his internship at the Gerkin Farms his senior year.
Fleenor is an agronomy major at Purdue with a focus in agronomic business and marketing. He completed an internship last summer with Crop Production Services.
Fleenor has a sister, Brittany, and a brother, C.J., who also earned an American FFA Degree.
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