Rylee Smith is a national finalist for the Star in Agriculture Science
OOLOGAH, OKLA. – Rylee Smith didn’t think she was cut out for FFA. In fact, she was on the verge of quitting outright less than a year after joining the organization.
However, if it wasn’t for Rylee mother, she would have moved on to some other activity during her eighth-grade year in the Oologah-Talala school district. Actually, it had more to do with a recent purchase her mother had made that kept Rylee on the FFA path.
“I had just recently moved to Oklahoma when I was a sixth grader and I was still kind of looking for where I fit in the school,” Rylee recalled. “When I became an eighth grader, I decided I was going to join FFA just to kind of try something new. And I didn’t like it my first year. I kind of wanted to quit, but my mom had bought me a corduroy jacket and she said, we’re going to get the money’s worth out of your corduroy jacket. So I stayed one more year and then that’s kind of when I fell in love with it.”
Rylee, who is now a 20-year-old junior at Oklahoma State University majoring in agricultural education and agriculture communications, said that jacket turned out to be a blessing. She not only found out where she fit in, but she also developed a love affair with the FFA.
What finally drew Rylee into the FFA world was a combination of things. But it also started when she discovered agricultural science.
“I have always loved science. That’s always been my favorite subject in school. Both my parents have bachelor’s degrees in science and biology,” Rylee said. “It just has been the easiest subject is the one I’ve enjoyed learning about the most. I didn’t grow up in a necessarily agricultural background. I’d been living just out in the suburbs. So I finally got to this rural town and agriculture was kind of part of it. I liked the idea of being around animals. Just being able to combine my passion for science and my new passion for agriculture into one thing to find a place I fit in and I belong.”
Rylee was no longer worried that most of her friends were into sports and other activities, and she found new ones who had the same interests as her.
That became even more apparent when Rylee attended her first convention.
“The state convention is kind of what really sealed the deal of why I wanted to stay too is because just the Oklahoma State Convention is just done well,” Rylee said. “It was really fun and I was like, oh wow, all these students that also love FFA. I wanted to be them. I ended up staying in it and then I found a bunch of different areas that I didn’t know about at FFA that I could compete in and just be involved in. That’s why I ended up loving it and why I still love it to this day.”
That same year Rylee also began working on the first of her seven different projects.
“I started my research in eighth grade. I tested what products I could use to increase the shelf life of apples,” Rylee said. “That was a food-based project. I chose that because I love food and food is just another one of my passions. Science and food just seemed like the way to go my eighth-grade year.”
Rylee moved on to testing the chemical composition of different brands of bottled water, giving canola oil to broiler chickens to see how impacted growth and the nutrition of the food, a chemical titration process on the oranges and another titration test to see what storage method was the best to preserve the nutrients in the produce that could provide to more of the sustainability.
“My senior year project was when I started focusing on the soil. I’d done the food and I wanted to shift my focus to where the food comes from,” Rylee said. “The food comes from the ground. I wanted to test the soil composition. So my first soil project was testing the cattle’s impact on soil, if they brought nutrients to the soil, what they took away, what they did to the compaction of the soil and how that could impact things. And then that sparked an interest for my collegiate research.”
As a freshman research scholar at OSU Rylee found a mentor and was able to start working at the Oklahoma State University Student Farm, which provides all of its produce to the local food and resource pantry, the Daily Bread.
“I was researching the soil because it was an old swine farm before it was a farm. I was kind of like, what’s the soil composition? What’s the nutrients in the soil?’” Rylee said. “I did a really deep soil analysis of the soil out on this farm. Then from there, I am starting to explore how these soil nutrients impact the nutrition of the food and how I can help decrease local food insecurity in my community, and how I can increase the nutritional value of the produce. So when they are getting this produce from them, it’s not only just feeding them, but it’s also giving them the most amount of nutrients as possible since they may not have a continuous supply of fresh produce if they’re coming just once a month to our daily bread or things like that.”
Rylee’s soil fertility project ended up making her a national finalist for the FFA Star in Agriculture Science award. Even more important, food insecurity has become Rylee’s passion project.
“I was able to see there’s a lot of families out there that struggle getting fresh food. If they do get food, the cheap food is normally not the most nutritious for your body,” Rylee explained. “It kind of shifted to the sustainability of the soil, how to grow food efficiently. That’s just why I’m really passionate about. It’s because I believe that everyone should have access to food and we should make it worthwhile If we’re going to be giving this food to people, it needs to also be nutritious to their bodies and not just junk food that you can buy for cheap at the grocery store.”
Rylee said she would never have been able to do any of this without FFA. When she graduates from Oklahoma State, she plans to return to the FFA and teach the next generation of students looking to fit in and make a difference in the world.
“ I don’t see myself in a research lab somewhere. My plan is to become an agriculture instructor or FFA advisor,” Rylee said. “I want to share my passions with them, share things that I’m passionate about. I’m so passionate about FFA. They produce great leaders, and I feel like these are the people who are going to go and provide food for the world, and they’re going to be the great leaders of the world. FFA gave me a place of belonging, which is all I was looking for as an eighth grader, and I didn’t realize it.”
