Newark FFA member named national finalist for American Star Farmer

NEWARK, Ill. — Growing specialty crops including vegetables, pumpkins, gourds, mums and gladioli have developed into award-winning projects for Ty Steffen.

Steffen is one of four FFA members from across the nation selected as a finalist for the American Star Farmer award.

In addition to Steffen from the Newark FFA Chapter in Illinois, finalists for American Star Farmer include: Larahmy Blakley from the Oologah FFA Chapter in Oklahoma, Paul Oliver from the Tattnall FFA Chapter in Georgia and Jacie Wolfinger from the Sumner-Eddyville-Miller FFA Chapter in Nebraska.

The American Star Farmer will be named during the 97th National FFA Convention & Expo, Oct. 23-26 in Indianapolis.

“Today I have six acres of pumpkins, 1,600 potted mums and I grow gourds, broom corn, vegetables, cut flowers, as well as gladioli that I use to compete in shows, and I have 12 hives of honeybees,” Steffen said.

Most of these items Steffen started growing as a high school freshman, just at a much smaller scale.

“I have learned the ability to scale up my projects and new tips of the trade to apply to my projects,” said the son of Joe and Tracy Steffen.

“I added the honeybees because I had an interest in them and harvesting the honey,” he said. “I also found the addition of the bees really increased the yields of my pumpkin crop, so I learned how to develop each individual project and also how to incorporate my projects with each other to develop them into a business.”

Steffen was introduced to gladioli by his dad, who is also the FFA adviser for the Newark chapter.

“We’ve developed them into a family competition,” the award finalist said. “It’s a healthy competition where we’re trying to beat one another and typically dad has the greater success.”

In addition to county fairs, Illinois State Fair and Minnesota State Fair, Steffen also competes with his gladioli internationally.

“One of the few things we can thank COVID for is being able to compete internationally through shows on Facebook,” Steffen said.

“I’ve won a couple of those, so that means I grew the best gladiolus in my division in the world,” he said. “I’ve really come to enjoy showing gladioli a lot because of the competition and being able to network with other people in the industry.”

Steffen sells most of his crops at farmers markets.

“The pumpkins, gourds and broom corn are sold at honor hayracks along a major highway,” he said. “That allows me to set up my produce for people to come and buy without me having to sit there and sell my products.”

When Steffen learned that he was an American Star Farmer finalist, it took some time for the news to settle in.

“I was randomly scrolling through Facebook and I happened to see National FFA’s post announcing the Star finalists and there I was,” he said. “It was definitely a shock and then dad sent me a message about an hour later.”

Over the years, Steffen has set goals to improve his projects.

“I wanted to keep growing and hopefully be rewarded on the national level,” he said. “But I didn’t specifically set out to be the American Star Farmer, so I’ve far exceeded my goals.”

However, once the finalists were announced, Steffen said, he made it his goal to be the American Star Farmer.

“Surrounding myself with people that pushed me has been a major driving force for me,” Steffen said.

“I credit a lot of my success to having my dad as my ag teacher who constantly pushed me to work on stuff,” he said. “It was almost like I had an ag class at home sometimes, but obviously it’s helped me get to where I am.”

In addition to his FFA projects, Steffen has enjoyed attending the Illinois FFA Convention, the National FFA Convention and the Illinois FFA Leadership Camp.

“Camp was a really fun week and I made a lot of friends that week that I still have contact with today,” Steffen said.

“I also enjoyed serving as the Section 7 treasurer and the connections I made have really stuck with me,” he said. “I learned a lot of new things that year, which meant a lot to my professional development.”

Steffen is currently a sophomore at Joliet Junior College, where he is enrolled in the transfer program. He plans to attend Illinois State University to complete his bachelor’s degree in agricultural business.

Although the FFA member has not identified a specific career goal, he is thinking about picking up his projects after college.

“If there’s a way I can develop them into a career, I would love to do that because I’m passionate about them,” Steffen said.

“This project has been fun, it’s meant a lot to me and it’s been quite a ride,” he said.