“A-nutter” Day in the Shop
The odd tradition here at NUHS.
April 13, 2019
FFA week is an annual tradition here at NUHS. Peanut day is always on the Thursday of FFA week. Peanut day was on February 21st. It is an event where all agriculture classes watch educational peanut videos, do peanut trivia, and “crack” some peanut jokes. The teachers bring in boxes of peanuts and students chow down while learning about them. There is also a biggest nut contest. When students find a large peanut, the teacher weighs it and at the end of the day the biggest nut wins a prize.
Peanut days “roots” come from an exchange program with a school in Georgia in the 1940’s. Some FFA students from New Ulm would go to the school in Georgia to learn about their agricultural practices which largely involves peanuts. Also, a group of students from Georgia would come to our school to learn about farming in our region and dairy. The program ended because there wasn’t enough interest. After the exchange program ended, the school created peanut day to commemorate the collaboration between the schools to educate each other.
I sat down for an interview with the esteemed former FFA president Zach Hoffman (RIP) and this is what he had to say about peanut day. “It informs students that the peanut industry is a massive industry in the united states. There are many products that students use all the time and they have no idea they contain peanuts. It helps students expand their mind beyond Minnesota and they get to learn some interesting trivia, like the fact that we had two peanut farmer presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.”
