On Thursday, I had the awesome opportunity to visit Marshall Kerper, one of Oley Valley’s students who is currently working on an SAE project. He is a junior who attends tech during most of the school day, but is present during my second period class where he spends time on completing an Independent Study. Most of his requirement for this study is to work on his AET profile to make sure he is keeping it updated and detailed on a weekly basis.
Prior to the visit, I met with Mrs. Rice and Mr. Deysher to discuss how they conduct SAEs at their program. I then introduced myself to Marshall and explained the purpose of me visiting him at his SAE site. We planned the best day for everyone to attend and also made sure it was approved by his parents.
Marshall is working towards completing an Entrepreneurship SAE through owning and breeding around 50 sheep at his home farm, Wishing Well Farms. He spends about 10 hours a week taking care of his sheep by feeding, grooming, and ensuring they remain healthy. He keeps his ewes and lambs at his farm and then most of the rams are kept at his grandparents property just a few minutes from his house. He manages the entire herd alongside his father and he spends a lot of time checking on ewes to see if they are lambing. The main breed Marshall manages are Tunis sheep, which we got to see a lot of during the visit. He also shows them at local fairs, the PA Farm Show, and Kile, where he has received rewards and recognition for his sheep.
Marshall received great feedback on how he can improve his AET record keeping to ensure he remains on track to receive recognition through an FFA award. Mr. Deysher gave Marshall a little notebook to carry around with him while he’s working, so that he can keep track of what breeds are lambing and how many are being added to the herd. They also recommended that when Marshall completes something that is not a part of his everyday routine, such as trimming their hooves or purchasing new hay, he should log that into AET as a journal entry.
As I mentioned earlier, Marshall has a notebook that he keeps in his pocket to mark down anything that needs to be journaled into AET. When he is in school, Marshall works on updating his AET profile by transferring his notes into the system. He also keeps track of any purchases or sales he makes through the financial entries part of AET. Mrs. Rice and Mr. Deysher will grade Marshall’s SAE project through using the AET rubric provided by the website. They will print out a complete report of his profile that contains all of his journal and financial entries to analyze and grade based on the rubric scale. They will check to see that his report contains pictures, clear descriptions of what skills he performed and learned, and journal entries that explain his sheep breeds and lambs.
I had a great time visiting Marshall at his home farm and I learned a lot about what he does daily to ensure he successfully is managing his herd. Learning how Mrs. Rice and Mr. Deysher make SAE visits has taught me the importance of scheduling and staying on track with AET profiles because it makes it a lot easier in the long-run. I hope you were able to get a glimpse into the hard work Marshall does daily to complete his awesome SAE project. Thanks for reading!
- Lauren
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