Altoona-Blair County Development Corp.’s first annual Agriculture Career Day turned out to be an award-winning event.

The event, planned in conjunction with Blair County Farm Bureau, was named a County Activities of Excellence program winner by the American Farm Bureau Federation.

AFBF selected 24 winners nationally from 154 entries, and Blair County was the only winner from Pennsylvania.

The event was held May 3 and 4 at Kulp Family Dairy Farm near Martinsburg.

During the two-day event, seventh-grade students from Tyrone, Bellwood-Antis, Altoona, Claysburg-Kimmel, Hollidaysburg, Spring Cove and Williamsburg visited the farm.

The event focused on a multitude of careers in the agriculture industry exposing students to dairy farming, veterinarian sciences, engineering, accounting, lending, information and technology, genetics, insurance and

more.

Numerous interactive stations allowed students to be exposed to the multi-faceted agriculture industry and helped them get accustomed to those career opportunities.

Dave Hileman of Hilecrest Farms in Sinking Valley, an ABCD Corp. agriculture committee member, said he got the idea from some friends in Wisconsin.

“We took it to the committee, and it evolved from there. I think it is a very nice award, and we are appreciative that someone recognizes the work done in the community,” Hileman said.

Cooperation led to the success of the event, said Jim Crawford, a member of the ABCD Corp. board of directors and agriculture committee chairman.

“The availability of the Kulp Family Dairy facilities, the presenters who spoke with the students about their individual agricultural related careers, plus all who assisted with the logistics of the event, made the Career Day successful. Perhaps the fact that the Career Day targeted seventh-grade students by introducing them to agricultural career opportunities, as they begin to consider career options, drew AFBF attention to this activity,” Crawford said.

“I think anything that the agricultural community does to educate the public and especially young people about modern agriculture and the fact it is a business that touches many lives and careers is something people look at, that caught the eye of those who made the decisions,” Hileman said.

The event had three main goals.

“First, we need young people to realize you don’t need to grow up on a farm to have a successful career in agriculture. Second, to show the students many of the various occupations they have access to, and third, we wanted students, teachers and advisers to observe a modern-day family business and realize it is a business. We felt we did a good job of meeting those three goals,” Hileman said.

Winning counties have the opportunity to put up a display at AFBF’s annual convention in Phoenix in January, and a display also will be present at PFB’s annual meeting Nov. 14-16.

“If all goes well, Dave and Jim will be going to represent Blair County. In my 25 years with Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, this is only the third time one of the counties in my region has been picked,” said Joe Diamond, PFB regional organization director.

“It is a great opportunity to show off a great project the agriculture community in Blair County was able to put together, a great opportunity for all of our different agriculture aspects to be recognized.”

Meanwhile, planning is underway for the second annual Agriculture Career Day to be held May 2 and 3 at the Kulp farm.

Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 946-7467.