Elizabethtown Area High School (EAHS) agriculture teacher Mark Anderson won the 2020 Golden Owl Award for the Eastern Region for excellence in agriculture education. Sponsored by Nationwide Insurance, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, and FFA, the award recognized Anderson as one of the top agriculture teachers in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As one of Pennsylvania's four Golden Owl Award recipients in 2020, Anderson is in the running to be named the commonwealth's agriculture educator of the year.
To help shed light on agricultural education and the contributions of teachers, Nationwide established the Golden Owl Award to honor outstanding agriculture educators in farm-heavy states like Pennsylvania, California, Iowa, Illinois, and Ohio.
Anderson received the honor at an award ceremony held in front of his teaching peers, district administrators, and the high school's FFA members. Taking part in the program were Sam Kieffer of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau; Mike Brammer, Pennsylvania FFA executive director; Dr. Scott Sheely, executive director of the Pennsylvania Commission for Agricultural Education Excellence; Margaret Chase, Nationwide representative for the states of Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania; Emily Keggan, Nationwide regional representative for agriculture business sales; Kathy Barry and Justin Marinkov, Kathy Barry Agency - Nationwide; Dr. Michele Balliet, superintendent of schools for the Elizabethtown Area School District; Maura Hobson, EAHS principal; Brandon Bixler, FFA state vice president; and Arilyn Oatman, FFA state sentinel.
Additionally, representing the high school's FFA organization were Luke Barton, Faith Burkholder, Andrew Ferrarelli, Derek Hottenstein, Samantha Ippolito, Jacob Kauffman, Mason McNitt, Emma Musser, Natalie Musser, Julia Neideigh, and Olivia Shenk.
In Pennsylvania, 98 nominations were received for 66 teachers. Following the nominations, a committee was tasked with selecting the four finalists, including Anderson. At EAHS, Anderson has helped to grow the school's FFA program. His students frequently win awards at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg, as well as at the local, state, and national levels.
Anderson has organized Agriculture and Environmental Day at the high school, where his students develop learning stations aligned to their interest in agriculture and present to the district's fourth-graders. The purpose of the educational event is to introduce elementary students to agricultural and environmental issues at the state and national levels. Also, the learning station presentations provide public speaking experience to the high school students. In addition, Anderson's classes have partnered with the Pennsylvania Game Commission to design and build a bear trap and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission to help stock local streams with trout for the fishing season.
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