Each year at the National FFA Convention & Expo, four FFA members are honored with American Star Awards for outstanding accomplishments in FFA and agricultural education.
The American Star Awards, including American Star Farmer, American Star in Agribusiness, American Star in Agricultural Placement and American Star in Agriscience, are presented to FFA members who demonstrate outstanding agricultural skills and competencies through completion of supervised agricultural experience (SAE). A required activity in FFA, an SAE allows students to learn by doing, by owning or operating an agricultural business, working or serving an internship at an agriculture-based business, or conducting an agriculture-based scientific experiment and reporting results.
Other requirements to achieve the award include demonstrating top management skills; completing key agricultural education, scholastic and leadership requirements; and earning an American FFA Degree, the organization’s highest level of student accomplishment.
The American Star in Agribusiness is awarded to the FFA member with the top nonproduction agribusiness SAE in the nation. Here are the 2023 winner and finalists for Star in Agribusiness:
WINNER: Lainey Hutchison, Tennessee
Horses have been a staple of agriculture for centuries, and people like Lainey Hutchison are educating the next generation of cowboys and cowgirls.
“My supervised agricultural experience (SAE) is in an area of equine entrepreneurship,” Hutchison said. “My ag business consists of me teaching horse riding lessons [and] doing youth farm camps.”
Hutchison, a member of Crockett County FFA in Tennessee, has been riding horses since she was 3 years old and competing in rodeos since she was 7, she said. Horses are just one part of her life, however — Hutchison comes from a cattle ranching family, and she has also worked with goats for many years.
In addition to typical ventures like breeding and selling goats, Hutchison said she also spent a few months in high school using her herd’s milk to make luxurious cleaning products.
“A smaller part of my business was making and selling goat soap and lotion,” Lainey said. “There was a lot of experimenting and trial and error, but we finally perfected our recipe, and we sold a lot of it in a very short amount of time. … Honestly, one day I would like to start that back up again.”
At 19 years old, Hutchison said she is proud of how much financial independence she has and how much agricultural knowledge she gets to pass on to younger generations at her youth farm camps. She also credited her parents and her FFA advisor Haley Williams with making her SAE a success.
“I never was a huge SAE kid in high school,” Hutchison said. “I didn’t understand why they wanted me to compete with it at all. Now I do. … [Ms. Williams] definitely has pushed me and encouraged me to keep going.”
Hutchison is currently attending the University of Tennessee at Martin on a rodeo scholarship. She’s majoring in farm and ranch management, and she said she plans to continue expanding her operations after graduation. She already has a few ideas, including hosting retreats and birthday parties on her family farm.
For FFA members looking to start an SAE, Hutchison’s advice is to chase your passions.
“I found something that I loved and I made a business out of it,” Hutchison said. “Without my SAE and without FFA, I would not have been able to showcase my independence as a woman in ag. I think FFA is a great decision for anyone.”
FINALIST: Paxton Boldry, Kentucky
Paxton Boldry was eager to start his landscaping business at a young age, but there was one small problem: he didn’t have a driver’s license.
“I started this supervised agricultural experience (SAE) in 2017, and I wasn’t able to drive at the time,” Boldry said. “My family members had to drive me from job to job just to build my client base. And from then on, I have grown it tremendously.”
Boldry, a member of McCracken County FFA in Kentucky, is the owner of Boldry Landscaping and Lawn Care. His company handles a variety of outdoor landscaping projects, including excavation, retaining walls, storm shelters, drainage systems, snow removal and even Christmas lights. Boldry said he is proud of how much his company has grown in six years.
“I now employ three people, and we have grown from about those six or eight [original] clients to 70 to 80 yearly,” Boldry said.
Although Boldry’s family was an essential part of helping him start his business — especially his father and grandfather — he said it was a huge relief when he finally got to drive his own car to work.
“That was amazing, and not only for just getting around from job to job,” Boldry said. “I was able to do what I wanted to on my own time instead of waiting on other people.”
Boldry said he has no plans to attend a university, so most of his time is spent expanding his operations and helping other businesses in his rural community.
“A lot of the work I get is actually work from other businesses, whether it is something that is too small for them and they don’t have time, or something that they know I would enjoy more than they would,” Boldry said. “I’ve never wanted to work in a 9-to-5 sitting in an office all day long, so I love what I do.”
For FFA members starting an SAE, Boldry said his best advice is to always work hard.
“In this world, you’ll get back out what you put into it, and hard work will pay off,” Boldry said.
FINALIST: Weston Whiteside, Texas
Like many people in agriculture-adjacent industries, Weston Whiteside is responsible for helping with the family business — but Whiteside, a member of Sam Rayburn FFA in Ivanhoe, Texas, said his family’s landscaping work had humble beginnings.
“My dad [is] a firefighter in the McKinney Fire Department, and it was just something to keep him busy and have a little extra cash,” Whiteside said. “I don’t think he ever thought it would turn into something like this.”
Whiteside bought Whiteside Landscaping from his father in 2016, and for the past seven years he has been running it with the help of his brother. They offer a variety of landscaping services, including mowing, weed control, leaf blowing, tree trimming, shrub cleaning, flower planting and more. They also hang Christmas lights to stay busy in the winter.
Since 2016, Whiteside Landscaping has grown from serving eight clients to 65 clients. Whiteside said he is proud of how much the business has expanded over the years, and he says he couldn’t have done it without his family and FFA advisors.
“It’s turned into something now that’s helped me pay for college,” Whiteside said. “When you’re a teenage kid, you want money for girlfriends and trucks and stuff like that. It paid for that and much more.”
Whiteside is currently majoring in agribusiness at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri. He said he’ll return to his landscaping company after graduating, but for now, he’s focused on playing baseball for the Bobcats as long as he can. Whiteside said his favorite professional teams are the Rangers and the Dodgers.
For FFA members interested in starting a supervised agricultural experience (SAE), Whiteside said his advice is to never give up, even when things are tough.
“There’s going to be times where you really just don’t want to,” Whiteside said. “But it paid off for me, so it can pay off for anyone else. … It’s going to suck, but you’ve just got to keep going.”
FINALIST: Joseph Pulver, Wisconsin
Agriculture is a family business for many, but Joseph Pulver comes from a lineage with a unique specialty: concrete.
“I’m actually the third-generation cement mason in my family,” Pulver said. “My grandpa started it, my father does it and now my brother and I both do it. … I just really like seeing a project come together that I built with my hands.”
As a member of Randolph-Cambria-Friesland FFA in Wisconsin, Pulver is the owner of JP Slabs, LLC — a business he started for his supervised agricultural experience (SAE) with the help of his father and his agriculture teacher. Pulver works on a wide variety of projects for his community.
“I do ag work [and] residential work,” Pulver said. “I do sheds, driveways, sidewalks, garages. … I get my feet wet in a lot of areas.”
Pulver doesn’t have any full-time workers at JP Slabs, but he has a rotating crew of six to eight people who help him on his projects, including several members of his own family. Pulver said he’s proud of overcoming the fear of being a young entrepreneur and taking on big projects.
“I did one for a farmer about two years ago for a big 80,000-bushel dryer for corn,” Pulver said. “There were a lot of blueprints involved.”
In May, Pulver graduated from Fox Valley Technical College with a degree in business management. He said his future plans are to keep expanding his operations until he has saved up enough money to buy in and become a partner in his dad’s concrete company, Middleton Construction.
“I would like to keep JP Slabs open and running as well, [but] I’m just going with the flow right now,” Pulver said.
Pulver’s advice for FFA members who want to start an SAE is to be brave and make a consistent effort.
“It can be a little nerve-wracking, but you’ve got to get over those nerves and just go for it,” Pulver said. “If you put the time and effort into it and a little bit of hard work, you can make it happen.”
The American Star Awards are sponsored by Cargill, Case IH, Elanco Animal Health and Syngenta. For more information on the awards, visit FFA.org.
