As one of the first 50 chapters founded in Wisconsin, the Beaver Dam FFA Chapter’s original charter (pictured above) still hangs in its school’s agriculture classroom.
Earlier this year, two Beaver Dam FFA members noticed a familiar name — Orville Muhle — among the charter’s signers. Muhle is the great-great-grandfather of sisters Hannah and Claire Karus, both of whom currently serve as chapter officers.
“I’d always known our relatives were involved in FFA, but I didn’t know he was a charter member,” Hannah Karus says. She joined FFA after her grandmother encouraged her to join in seventh grade. Now a senior, Hannah serves as her chapter’s sentinel and plans to major in biology or another science-related field in college.
Hannah Karus (left) and her advisor, Jonathon Ganske (right), measure plants in the Beaver Dam FFA greenhouse.
“She has really taken on a passion for plants, and her Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) focuses on horticulture and working in our greenhouse,” says Beaver Dam FFA advisor Jonathon Ganske.
Claire Karus, on the other hand, is a sophomore serving as her chapter’s historian. “She’s kind of our community service superhero,” says Ganske, who notes several of the chapter’s community service projects have been underway for decades. “The current students have kind of a tradition to uphold, and they embrace that.”
Claire Karus examines a tree in the Beaver Dam FFA forest.
Family Ties
Having helped charter the Wisconsin FFA Association nearly 100 years ago, Beaver Dam is a chapter built on tradition and honoring history. Ganske says his predecessor, retired agriculture teacher Dave Laatsch, was the FFA advisor at Beaver Dam for more than 40 years. Laatsch taught Ganske, who is a third-generation FFA member.
“He collects FFA memorabilia and writes and gives presentations on FFA history,” Ganske says. “The chapter has also maintained scrapbooks each year recording this history, dating to 1927.”
Another bit of chapter history also relates to the Karus sisters. In 1949, John Butterbrodt was the first chapter member to earn the American Farmer Degree. According to Ganske, Butterbrodt didn’t have a blue jacket for the degree ceremony in Kansas City, so he borrowed the jacket owned by his friend, Orville Muhle, Jr., who’s also the Karus sisters’ great-grandfather and son of charter member Orville Muhle.
Beaver Dam FFA legend holds that Muhle was the first-ever owner of a blue jacket at the school. The two young men drove from Beaver Dam to Kansas City so Butterbrodt could receive the coveted honor on stage in proper attire.
“Stories like that of the generations before these students who were active in the organization and helped others are important to tell and to be preserved,” Ganske says. “Knowing how things were compared to today illustrates that both agriculture and FFA are always changing, that it’s never stagnant and we all continue to grow and learn.”
Step Back in Time
As we near the National FFA Organization’s centennial anniversary in a few years, take some time to reflect on its rich history. From the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act in 1917 to present day, explore this full timeline of FFA traditions and milestones.
