Agriculture teacher Stacey Rickard of Illinois has garnered the state’s Golden Owl Award—not once, but twice! Photo Credit: Illinois State Board of Education
s Golden Owl Award—not once, but twice!
Typically, educators who teach agriculture courses escape notice, but Stacey Rickard has earned accolades for her work. She has garnered the state’s Golden Owl Award—not once, but twice!—in both 2023 and 2024.
Stacey leads agriculture courses at Salt Fork High School in Salt Fork, a rural community located in the Central Corn Belt Plains of Illinois. Her teaching methods include hands-on labs, real-world applications, and a commitment to engaging students.
“The dynamic nature of teaching agriculture is what truly captivates my passion for agriculture and teaching,” declares Stacey. “One moment, I might use M&M’s to illustrate lessons on Grain Futures Market trading. The next hour could find me overseeing welding activities, only to conclude my day with a group of 20 students immersed in a soil pit outdoors, digging down four feet deep,” she says.
In addition to her work in the classroom, Stacey serves as the advisor for the FFA (Future Farmers of America) Chapter on her campus. Under her tutelage, club has grown from 22 students to 135, more than half the population of the school, in just the past four years.
Stacey also serves her school as an Assistant Volleyball Coach, the Class of 2025 sponsor, and a member of the campus Curriculum Committee. She also dedicates her time to the state IAVAT Board as the District 4 representative and serves as the Section 18 IAVAT treasurer. And as if all that were not enough, she mentors new agriculture teachers from all over the state.
But her proudest accomplishment, Stacey says, is establishing AgVenture, a program that takes students beyond the corn and bean fields of Illinois to visit the nation’s largest feedlot in Kansas. The program also gave the students the opportunity to lean how to brand cattle in South Dakota. The students collaborated with a local farmer to create an ongoing nitrogen study, using math to take measurements, science skills to craft lab reports, English skills to write speeches, and their knowledge of history to engage policymakers.
In addition to her two Golden Owls, Stacey has earned a Golden Ruler in 2022, and she was named the Teacher of the Week by the News Gazette. Her career as an educator spans 13 years.
