Blue Jackets, Blue Collars:
Mike Rowe Gives FFA Members the Dirt on Agriculture and Hard Work
By Kelliann Blazek
Every FFA member has a blue collar and so does Mike Rowe.
Rowe, the creator and host of Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs,” gave the keynote address at the opening session of the 82nd National FFA Convention. Rowe drew more than 35,000 FFA members, advisors, supporters and guests.
“Looking at all these jackets and all these different states on the back, it was like somebody took my resume, wrapped it around a stick of dynamite, lit the fuse and threw it in the air and blew it up,” Rowe said. “My career is now stuck on everybody’s back.”
Rowe has worked at more than 250 jobs and doesn’t spend too much time in one place, besides the skies, he said.
“My office is the United States of America."
Just give him some Bose headphones, DVDs and a Richard Russo book and a plane ride becomes the “last great place to catch up.”
Introducing himself as an apprentice, not an expert, Rowe said he is all too familiar with failure.
“People think that the opposite of success is failure and that’s not true,” he said. “The opposite of success, I think, is just a symptom of trying.”
Brady Duxbury, the 2009 South Dakota State FFA President, is an avid viewer of “Dirty Jobs."
“His show offers a very direct, transparent view of agriculture and what we do,” Duxbury said.
The connection between the public and producers is one that needs mending, Rowe said during his address. Rowe’s comments concerning that frayed relationship caused Duxbury to re-evaluate his perceptions of the relationship between the agricultural and non-agricultural world.
“It really inspired me to take a look at… agriculture as we know it and understand that there really isn’t that connection that should exist between our government and our local producers in
agriculture,” Duxbury said.
Duxbury plans to dig more into these topics at mikeroweWORKS.com, a website Rowe launched last year. The website addresses the meaning of a good job and how to find one. One of the upcoming additions on the website will be a “Warehouse” link that will publicize products from businesses featured on “Dirty Jobs," a show that continues to develop in purpose.
“Most of the people who looked at ‘Dirty Jobs’ would look at it and go, ‘Man, better them than me.’” Rowe said. “In fact, now, that’s not how people respond to the show. People look at the show and go, “Huh, I wonder if I can do that?”
Les Swanson, a 60-year-old septic cleaner from Stoughton, Wis., was one of the first people Rowe shadowed during the first season of “Dirty Jobs.” Rowe said the 12 hours he worked with Swanson changed his life, for reasons other than the smell.
Swanson worked as a high school counselor before entering the waste management industry, a drastic career change that struck Rowe.
“The willingness to get dirty is at the heart of what we’re talking about. The country was built on a willingness to get dirty,” Rowe said.
Swanson’s own account of his “Dirty Jobs” debut revealed it was just another workday. Sure, they were “sweating buckets,” but Rowe was easy to get along, Swanson said.
“If it wasn’t a smile, it was a smirk,” Swanson said.
Swanson reunited with Rowe for an episode of “Larry King Live” in July 2007. The “Dirty Jobs”
episode boosted Swanson’s business and garnered interest in area youth who watched the show, he said.
Rowe’s appeal doesn’t stop with the younger generation, though. Jessica Geisler described Rowe as a “speaker that kids could really relate to and advisors could enjoy.” Geisler is the Shenandoah FFA chapter advisor and teaches agricultural education in Shenandoah, Ind.
Rowe’s story about his experience castrating sheep by biting off their “business” was one Geisler won’t forget. The episode garnered attention when groups questioned the animal ethics of the castration method. Rowe talked to the Humane Society and PETA before filming the episode.
“I realized I tried to be smart. I had called the appropriate authorities but the information was wrong,” Rowe said. “A rancher showed me what was right.”
Geisler appreciated the honesty of the story and the lesson it provided students.
“It taught the kids that you can’t always believe what you hear from other people and you need to check your sources to do your research,” she said.
Geisler frequently incorporates episodes of “Dirty Jobs” in the classroom as a precursor to FFA field trips. Approximately 250 Shenandoah students see the shows, and between Geisler and her fellow agriculture teachers, they show half of a season of “Dirty Jobs” each year.
Rowe’s experiences on the farm also helped Michelle Knox, a senior from the East Central FFA in Texas. The inspiration for her FFA Agriscience Fair project arrived in the form of a "Dirty Jobs"
episode that included video of Rowe spraying poultry feed with green dye. The show prompted Knox’s two-year study, which tracked the behavior of poultry when fed poultry feed that was dyed green.
“My viewpoint was if you can find a way to have them eat more in a faster period, then eventually you’ll make more money,” said Knox. “So I took what you [Rowe] were doing and figured it out and, sure enough, you could make some more money.”
Knox successfully competed at the state and national level with her project, receiving a gold rating at the 2008 National FFA Convention Agriscience Fair. Knox will graduate in May 2010 and earned three scholarships as a result of her research. That’s enough money to pay for her first year of college, she said.
“He may think it’s just a job, but somewhere down in the dirt he’s really helping kids,” said Knox.