End of Semester Wrap-up

Dr. Larry Gossen

We started out this semester in August in the middle of a major heat wave and drought. While we are still in the middle of the drought, I’d take just a few degrees of that heat this week! Single-digit highs and negative lows in the forecast don’t bode well for a comfortable new year.

Our fall enrollment on campus was again slightly higher than last year. Although we may not have met our goals, we are pleased with the students that did choose to make NCTA their home away from home for this semester. We have a good percentage of them returning for the spring semester. We are also adding quite a few new Aggies in January.

Our traveling teams stayed busy and had a lot of success.

Our Ranch Horse team showed great improvement and many students brought home hardware from several of the four events in which they competed. Coach Joanna Hergenreder has done a fantastic job building this team and helping them achieve success.

The Rodeo team put on many miles attending rodeos in Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota, and Nebraska. Coach Jaden Clark is working hard to build this program into a competitive group of students that represent our college well wherever they go.

The Livestock Judging team also spent a lot of time on the road. From the State Fair or Aksarben in Grand Island, to Hutchinson, Kansas, Amarillo, Texas, or the American Royal in Kansas City, this team and Coach Dr. Doug Smith also represented NCTA in a very positive fashion.

Our Shotgun Sports team, coached by Alan Taylor, also had a great fall season. They didn’t put on quite the miles the rest of our teams did as most of theirs took place in Kansas or Nebraska. This team continues to grow and improve.

Of course, our recruiting and admissions team have been on the road a lot this fall, meeting with school counselors, high school classes, college fairs, agricultural expos and even the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana.

One thing NCTA is known for is our hands-on approach to teaching and learning. One example of just that is when Dr. Brad Ramsdale, Associate Professor of Agronomy, takes his classes over to the Stumpf International Wheat Center in Grant to work on various wheat research plots.

We also were able to host a variety of events, groups, or activities on campus. We always look forward to having out-of-town guests, future students, or stakeholder groups visit us on campus.

We continue to host several district FFA events with over 400 agricultural education students from southern Nebraska visiting campus. We hope that many of these students choose NCTA for their future educational needs.

We also hosted the University of Nebraska Lead 41 class, coordinated by Dr. Terry Hejny. It is always a pleasure to have these future leaders of the Nebraska agriculture industry on campus.

Without a doubt, there were two highlights of the fall for me personally. First was the opportunity to take two of our students, Maddy Carr and Tanner Ostrander, to Kearney to make a presentation to the Nebraska Board of Regents. Maddy and Tanner did a fantastic job representing the students of NCTA, explaining our programs and activities to the Board.

The second highlight was the rolling out of our capital campaign to raise money for student scholarships and the new Student Success and Activity Center.

I continue to appreciate the relationship NCTA has with the community of Curtis. I look forward to even more opportunities to collaborate on projects with community leaders, businesses, and patrons.

NCTA Events:

Dec. 16-Jan. 8:  Holiday Break for students

Dec. 23-Jan. 2: Holiday Offices closed

Jan. 18: Host District 11 FFA LDE

Jan. 19: Connect-the-Dots at Kearney

Jan. 24-26: Recruit @ Colorado Farm Show Greeley

Jan. 26: Host Sorghum Symposium Event