Tri Star, Lima Senior ties grow

CELINA - Tri Star Career Compact is joining forces with another career tech program to offer students a more comprehensive agricultural education.

Tri Star's ag industrial technology, a longtime staple program formerly known as ag mechanics, has informally partnered with Lima Senior High School's fledgling agricultural education program. The collaboration will have the two programs exchange equipment, materials and supplies and other resources, officials said.

"Lima Senior's program is in its first year and the two programs felt this was a unique opportunity to work together," said Tri Star Director Tim Buschur. "Having two career tech schools work together is a unique opportunity since one is an urban and the other is a rural program."

The collaboration will find Tri Star ag industrial technology students working on Lima Senior's John Deere 4840 tractor and a drill that Lima students will use to plant crops this spring on a 30-acre farm they have access to through a partnership with Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections.

Lima Senior High School ag instructor Danial Maltsbarger said the collaboration between the two entities is mutually beneficial, one that will complement the education of all students.

"For Tri Star to go buy a no-till drill makes no sense because they don't have an active school farm, but we need one," Maltsbarger said. "So we were able to acquire a drill, but we don't have the shop space to work on it or the skill level."

Tri Star ag industrial students in return will gain valuable experience working directly on the tractor and drill supplied by Lima Senior.

"Our program mostly focuses on ag business and the production aspect of agronomy, the technology and livestock," Maltsbarger noted. "We don't go real deep into the ag mechanics piece, where Tri Star has an ag mechanics program. I think this really sums up what career tech education is and what ag education is - that cooperation together."

Tri Star ag industrial technology instructor Ken Platfoot agreed with that assessment.

"To be able to get the diversity of equipment in here really helps because (students) are not just focused on working on one particular piece of equipment or one particular part of a piece of equipment," Platfoot said. "Now they can diversify and work on different equipment."

In fact, students spend 70% of their time in Platfoot's class working on equipment and vehicles ranging from a leaf-blower to trucks to a tractor, as they learn about engine and fuel systems.

"It's that mindset of going that step further to figure out what the issue is," Platfoot said about his students making repairs and diagnostics. "The students that come through here are hands-on learners. They have to touch things to learn from it."

The students will focus their attention first on the John Deere tractor.

"The main objective is to get this thing up and running and prepped for spring planting season," Platfoot said.

The newfound partnership between the two career-tech programs likely will involve Tri Star's animal health program, officials said.

"If we have animals that are sick or need help, maybe we can collaborate with the animal health program. I'm a big believer in trying to make this as realistic as possible," Maltsbarger said. "You put those three programs together and that really encompasses our entire ag industry, and that was a lot of the reason why I wanted to team up with Tri Star."