Once a shy student who grew up on a family farm in sparsely populated Clark Township, a recent Whiteland graduate has reached the national finals in FFA for his work raising and breeding pigs.
Sam Trout, who earned his diploma earlier this year, is one of four national finalists in the FFA Swine Production Proficiency competition.
Trout won state honors multiple times for the pigs he’s shown at fairs, along with a national junior show award for showing a Tamworth Gilt in 2014. He is Whiteland Community High School’s first national FFA finalist since 1987, said Hannah Goeb, the school’s agricultural science teacher.
Trout grew up in Clark Township, a mostly rural part of the county with fewer than 3,000 people. He took after his brother, showing pigs at county and state fairs. He also tagged along with his brother, working at Sugar Creek Genetics, a swine breeding operation that straddles the Johnson and Marion County line. Working with Sugar Creek Genetics, he not only fed and vaccinated baby pigs, but artificially inseminated sows, Trout said.
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Sugar Creek Genetics breeds swine, with a goal of creating quality show pigs, according to its Facebook page.
Trout’s work there qualified as a supervised agricultural experience, required of anyone applying for a FFA award, Goeb said.
“I’ve always loved being around animals, especially pigs,” Trout said. “At Sugar Creek Genetics, I handle baby pigs and big pigs; I enjoy being around them. And then showing pigs; I’ve always enjoyed showing pigs. It’s fun being out there at a 4-H show with my friends, trying to be competitive and at the same time have a good time.”
Trout will qualify for scholarship money if he wins the national contest.
As part of his application for national FFA recognition, Trout took photos of everything he did at Sugar Creek, and described in interviews the process of raising pigs. He applied in the swine production proficiency category his sophomore year, placing fourth in Indiana, but was selected to represent Indiana on the national stage this year. Although just a junior, Trout graduated Whiteland High School earlier this year.
“This is really huge. It’s been a dream since freshman year … to try and win this. It shows if you work hard at something, you can achieve it. I work hard in everything I do with pigs, and this shows it pays off," Trout said of being a national finalist. "It’s a huge achievement for me and it makes me very happy to win this award and be where I’m at. It makes me proud to be part of Whiteland FFA.”
If Trout had advanced to the national finals any other year, he would appear at the national FFA convention in Indianapolis, but he instead will partake in a virtual convention, from Oct. 27 to 29. During the convention, judges from around the country will select the winner in each competition category, including swine production proficiency, said Brett Evans, supervised agricultural experience education specialist with the National FFA Organization.
Before the winner is announced, candidates for the national award will submit videos of themselves answering questions from judges.
“We’re looking for growth in skills and what they’ve learned from when they started the project to the time of applying,” Evans said. “The most important thing is what skills they’ve learned and how they’ve grown and developed the project.”
Trout has been part of the FFA program at Clark-Pleasant schools since middle school. Throughout his time in the program, he has developed from being shy to being competitive and dedicated, Goeb said.
“He was always very interested in agriculture. He grew up on a family farm,” Goeb said. “He was shy at first in classes, but through FFA and contests, he got more competitive and gained more skills. The last two years of FFA were really competitive. Over his time in FFA, he was in eight or so competitions. He qualified for state in at least four of those. You could definitely see how dedicated he was.”
Whiteland High School’s agriculture program grew from about 60 students in 2015 to about 300 this year. Trout’s achievement is an indicator of the program’s growth, Goeb said.
“Our FFA program has gone through highs and lows over the years, and we’ve been working really hard to build it back up over the last seven years or so,” Goeb said. “I think (Trout’s national recognition) shows students how much they can achieve. I tell the freshmen, ‘If you work hard, you can get to this level.’”
Trout attends Ivy Tech Community College, where he is studying actuarial science, he said.
