The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Central NY celebrates maple
VERONA, N.Y. >> More than 2,000 visitors attended the back-toback Maple Weekends at the Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School, joining the district’s FFA in the annual celebration of all things maple.
On Sunday, Maple Weekend 2017 came to an end, as Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, R-22, and New York State Commissioner of Agriculture Richard Ball joined VV-Swith the traditional tree tapping on school grounds.
“We’re here to celebrate maple of course, because it is our first crop coming off the farms this season,” Ball said. “But we’re also celebrating farms. We’re celebrating family farms, family businesses. We’re celebrating the tradition of maple.”
For Ball, Maple Weekend evokes
childhood memories on his grandfather’s farm, riding on a horse-drawn carriage through the sugar bush.
“I think about my past, our past, the tradition of New York state of maple, and I think about the next generation coming on, and I have to tell you, and the governor agrees, we’re in a pretty good place here in New York,” Ball said. “We have a great industry, a great agricultural community, we have great leadership up ahead of us.”
VVS Superintendent Martha Group called the FFA program VVS’ “crown jewel” and thanked the school board for its support as the district continues to “develop the future of agriculture here locally.”
“We know that New York state does produce the best maple syrup,” Group said.
During the tree tapping ceremony, Tenney shared that she was on the floor of the House the other day and Maine Congressman Bruce Poloquin, D-2, was bragging that Maine produces the best maple syrup, something to which she objected. As a result of that conversation, she issued a challenge to VVS students to help her prove that the best maple syrup is produced by the VVS FFA.
“This programis just the best,” Tenney said. “The VVS students are going to give me all the facts, and we’re going to do a floor speech on VVS and why you produce the best maple syrup through your FFA program.”
Verona Supervisor Scott Musacchio, New York State Sen. Joseph Griffo, R- 47, and Assemblyman Bill Magee, D-121, were all on hand to witness the ceremony as well. In addition to the local, state and federal dignitaries, members of the FFA Chapter from Lake Butler, Fla., joined their VVS peers during the tree tapping cer- emony. The Lake Butler FFA spent the last four days visiting with the VVS FFA, learning about the maple industry and how the VVS FFA taps the local resource to generate funding for organizational activities.
Lake Butler Chapter president Noah Wright explained that while the VVS FFA focuses on maple production, his chapter concentrates on animal and agricultural science, with special attention to the animal biological systems and frequently compete in career development competitions organized by the FFA. The chapter also focuses on professional skills such as pre- paring meals on your own and job searching skills.
When asked how he was adapting to the snow and blustery conditions during his visit to New York, Wright smiled and said, “I enjoyed it. It was awesome.”
His favorite experience with his New York counterparts was checking on the sap lines and making any necessary repairs, which was one of the goals of the Empire State visit, said Lake Butler FFA advisor Linsey Androlevich.
“We are really looking at how their chapter operates off of the [maple] industry,” she said, adding that in addition to maple industry tours, Lake Butler students also visited local dairy farms and Vernon Downs during their visit.
As with the previous three Maple Weekend days, Sunday also gave attendees an opportunity to tour maple production on the VVS campus in addition to joining in a breakfast feast provided by the FFA.
“We had a very strong crowd today,” VVS FFA advisor Keith Schiebel said, adding that his students were well on their way to breaking more the 1,000-gallon production mark, and during the remainder of the maple season the program should hit an “all time high production” thanks in part to the success generated by Maple Weekend.