SEQUIM — Five Sequim High School Future Farmers of America students who restored a 1954 McCormick Farmall Super C propane tractor will compete against 11 other teams around the nation as finalists in the 2011 Delo Tractor Restoration Competition in October.
The Sequim FFA team of Carson Lewis, Skyler Lewis, Megan Bekkevar, Drake Binswanger and Karl Behrens restored the rusting tractor donated by Sequim residents Cy and Ella Frick, who own Frick’s Healthcare, Medical Equipment and Photo in Sequim.
The once-decrepit tractor with flat tires had sat in front of the high school on North Sequim Avenue, part of another FFA landscape project near the agriculture building and greenhouse.
Then the FFA students talked of restoring it as a club project, not intending to enter it into any competition.
“It was one of those things we just thought about,” FFA president Megan Bekkevar, a Sequim High senior who has been with the organization for four years.
“We did not know about the competition until partway through restoring it.”
After about six months and 300 hours of hard work, the students had a cherry-red show piece that has been exhibited at the Sequim Lavender Festival, Clallam County Fair and Washington State Fair.
Shelley Binswanger, mother of team member Drake Binswanger, said the students are hoping to raise money to support their trip to the finals.
“We’re trying to raise a few thousand,” she said, hoping to raise it through individuals, businesses and organizations.
“We figure about $1,400 per student.”
The team has a tax identification number for contributions to the SHS TRC Team Booster Club, P.O. Box 3125, Sequim, WA 98382.
Binswanger can be contacted at 714-319-1715, or by email at shelley.binswanger@me.com.
Megan Bekkevar said she was pleasantly surprised that the FFA restoration team headed up by her father and longtime Blyn-area family rancher/farmer, Jim Bekkevar, made the cut for the 12 finalists.
“I can’t believe we are getting the opportunity to do this,” Megan Bekkevar said.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
The event will bring the nation’s top teen tractor restoration specialists to Indianapolis during the 84th National FFA Convention. There they will compete for the national title.
Projects will be presented on Oct. 19-20, with the champion crowned on the evening of Oct. 20.
Since 1995, the Delo Tractor Restoration Competition has rewarded the determination, mechanical skills and business savvy of high school-age FFA members from around the country.
Delo representatives said that, through the restoration of an antique tractor, participants develop skills applicable to the modern business world.
The skills needed for success in the program — equipment maintenance, teamwork, project management, budgeting, planning and marketing — help develop the participants into future leaders in the agriculture community, representatives of the petroleum products division of Chevron said.
Indeed, that was the case with restoration team members, Karl Behrens, an FFA member for a year and junior at Sequim High.
“I learned quite a bit,” Behrens said. “I learned basic mechanics.”
He said he looks forward to the trip to Indianapolis “to make a great presentation and hopefully win.”
All contestants to the Delo Tractor Restoration Competition have to present a workbook outlining the whole tractor restoration process, from mechanical overhauls of the engine, transmission and auxiliary and ancillary systems, to the external appearance of the tractors.
The Sequim finalists were invited to the Indianapolis convention to present their projects to a panel of qualified tractor restorers.
Projects will be graded on restoration process, results and documentation, as well as oral presentation and safety precautions.
The prizes from the Chevron subsidiary are champion: $5,000; reserve champion: $3,000; and third place: $1,500.
The Sequim restoration cost about $4,000 in parts alone.
For the second year, the Delo Tractor Restoration Competition will include a video voting competition that allows the public to select its favorite restoration. A
ll projects that included a video as part of their submission (finalist and entrants alike) are eligible for the video voting competition.
View the Sequim team’s tractor restoration video on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Ot2PfOevh0s.
To vote, visit www.DeloPerformance.com and click on the Tractor Restoration Competition icon.
View and vote for your favorite video through
Oct. 20.
Members of the team with the most votes will each win an iPod Shuffle.
The video was filmed and edited by FFA sponsor Kristi Short, the high school’s agriculture teacher, and the FFA students involved in the project.
It takes the viewer through the stages of restoration, and includes some play-acting at the beginning, some comical moments during the actual work, and Megan Bekkevar, who has driven tractors much of her life on her family’s farm, giving the tractor a test run on the Bekkevar farm where it was restored.
Short said the project taught her students business and leadership skills, in which they learned how to work together and delegate responsibilities.
They learned mechanics and business skills, such as keeping track of costs, hours and how they spent their time.
The team is now intensively preparing for their presentation to the judges, which will be followed by an question-and-answer session to test how they retained what they learned.
“I couldn’t be more proud of them for what they have done,” Short said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
