By Wendy Sweeter
When students return to school for the 2020-21 school year, a new face will greet them in the ag room.
Brady Duxbury was officially named the new ag instructor and FFA adviser at the March 16 school board meeting. Duxbury brings many years of experience as an FFA member and eight years of teaching agriculture in South Dakota. He fills the position vacated by the retiring Jim Wilson, who has been with the district for 23 years.
Duxbury grew up on a 500-head cow/calf operation near Wessington. After the school in Wessington closed at the end of his eighth grade year due to not having the state minimum of 100 students, he spent his high school years in Wessington Springs. That’s where he began his FFA career.
“I was one of those super shy and very non-talkative kids and FFA really allowed me to grow and mature into a person I certainly like a lot better than the person that started in that program,” he said.
As an active member, he had the opportunity to go to two national soils judging contests and one national range judging contest. As a high school senior, Duxbury ran for a state FFA office, but didn’t make it.
Then he started as a range science major at South Dakota State University. He ran again as a college freshman and was successful and became the State FFA president. At that point, he changed his major to agricultural education.
“My first time going to national convention was as a state officer. It was one of those life changing experiences,” he said. “That’s really the main reason I switched to ag ed degree, just because I loved the people, I loved the communication, I loved the connection with kids.”
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