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Kansas Student Achieves Career Success

INDIANAPOLIS - Caleb Alexander has fond childhood memories of tagging along with his father as he checked sprinklers and drove tractors for the family's farm and ranch in Garden City, Kan. He always knew he'd be a farmer, just like his father, so he decided to pursue his own hay bailing operation, a business that has now earned him top honors.

The National FFA Organization named Alexander 2007 Star in Agribusiness, one of the organization's highest honors, at the 80th National FFA Convention, Oct. 24 - 27, in Indianapolis.

During the convention, Alexander and three other finalists participated in interviews conducted by a panel of judges, who named the top candidate in each area. Those areas are American Star Farmer, American Star in Agribusiness, American Star in Agricultural Placement and American Star in Agriscience. Alexander was presented with the award during an onstage convention ceremony and received a plaque and an award of $4,000. All finalists received plaques and $2,000 each.

In 2001, Alexander got the idea to start his own operation when he and his father noticed a shortage of small, high quality square bale producers in their area. Seeing an opportunity, his father suggested adding value to the family's alfalfa crop by putting it up into small squares. With the help of his father, Alexander created CA Hay and purchased a used baler and accumulator and began baling hay in the summer of 2002.

"I've learned many valuable lessons from operating CA Hay," says Alexander. "A few of those lessons are the importance of ingenuity, the value of satisfying customers and the reward of honest, hard work."

Five years later, he now bales, sells and delivers small squares of high-quality alfalfa hay to several customers including local horse owners. In addition to baling and selling hay, Alexander also custom bales to a customer base of more than 40 people from seven different states.

Alexander is currently pursuing a degree in agricultural economics from Kansas State University. After college, the 21-year-old plans to complete an internship with an agribusiness or volunteer with a mission organization for a year. He then plans to return to his family farm and hay operation full time.>

He is the son of Eldon and Terry Alexander and is a member of the Garden City FFA, where the advisor is Pat Venjohn.

His supervised agricultural experience (SAE) program led him to apply and earn the American FFA Degree, in which a student must earn and invest $7,500 or have earned and productively invested at least $1,500 and worked 2,250 hours in excess of scheduled class time.

An SAE program is one of three components that make up the agricultural education program. By combining the SAE career entrepreneurship or job placement component with classroom instruction from agricultural education instructors and leadership development from the FFA, students like Alexander are able to make a positive impact on their own and others' lives.

Awards and recognition for Stars Over America finalists are made possible by the generous support of individual contributors to the National FFA Foundation.

The National FFA Organization, formerly known as the Future Farmers of America, is a national youth organization of 500,823 student members - all preparing for leadership and careers in the science, business and technology of agriculture - as part of 7,358 local FFA chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The National FFA Organization changed to its present name in 1988, in recognition of the growth and diversity of agriculture and agricultural education. The FFA mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education. Visit www.ffa.org for more information