Ultimate Gift: FFA Members Restore Their Adviser's Family's Farmall As A Surprise Retirement Gift

Meet Larry Plapp just once, and you’ll quickly see the retired ag teacher and FFA adviser has a gift.

“I taught agriculture for 37 years and had a wonderfully enjoyable career doing that,” Plapp says.

Plapp was honored with many awards during his 37-year teaching career. His gift was the ability to connect with students, especially their freshman year.

“We touched upon a lot of different things in the freshman class, and it was kind of a launching point for the kids as to what they might take as their sophomore, junior or senior year. I just enjoyed their curiosity is for the most part,” he says.

Maybe that’s why many out of the close to 5,000 students Plapp taught will forever remember him.

“He was the greatest teacher ever,” says Carter Volck, current president of Badger FFA in Lake Geneva, Wis. “He was the teacher who came into school every day and he wanted to do his job. There wasn’t a question about that. He would do anything for anyone.”

The Decision to Retire From Teaching 

The classroom was his calling, which is why the decision to retire this year wasn’t easy.

“I had toyed with this for a while,” Plapp says. “ I'll be honest with you, COVID was a difficult time in the teaching business. We were teaching virtual at school and everything in between. It did take a toll.”

It was a tough decision, but Plapp says he simply knew it was time.

“I had a wonderful officer team lined up for my what I was thinking would be my last year, as I kept going on with this team, I thought, ‘This is this is a good way to end,’” he says.

The Gift Idea 

What Plapp didn’t know was he would receive a very special retirement gift.

“We were at some leadership conference, and he was talking about how another ag teacher from a different school got a tractor for his retirement,” remember Volck. “And joking to us, he's like, ‘Oh, I bet I won't get a tractor for my retirement.’”

While it was a joke at the time, it quickly turned into the students’ new goal. With the help of Candice Franks, Plapp’s teaching partner and Badger FFA adviser, the students got to work. 

Franks contacted Plapp’s brother, who lives in Indiana. He knew just the tractor the kids should restore.

An FFA member and his dad picked up the tractor and bought it back to the Lake Geneva area so the FFA members could restore it.

Close Call 

With a separate group chat, Franks and the students worked behind the scenes, all while working to hide it from Plapp.

“One of our local tractor implements had donated us a check towards the project, and they just sent it to Badger FFA Agriscience,” says Franks. “Convenient enough, Larry actually went down to go through the mail that day, and had brought the check back in his hand. “

At that point, Franks was sure the secret was out.

“I came back to these guys, and said, “We are so busted; he saw one of the donations,’” says Franks.

“It was a close call,” adds Volck.

That wasn’t the only challenge to restoring Plapp’s family tractor. Everything was donated -- all the work and parts.

“None of us have really restored a tractor. My dad works in diesel truck shop, but before that, he worked in another like auto mechanic shop, where they like redid trucks and stuff like that. So my dad was the one who painted the tractor,” says Volck.

The Ultimate Gift 

But with a mission in mind, those challenges were always overcome, and last spring during the FFA awards night, still unbeknownst to Plapp, he was in for the surprise of a lifetime. They first called him up and gave him a couple personal gifts.

“Then they said, ‘Well, we’ve got to go outside to see the next one,’” says Plapp.

“We had to walk outside, and all of a sudden they fire up the tractor, and I knew this sound, and I thought, ‘That can't be,’" Plapp says. “It just flabbergasted me.”

It wasn’t just any tractor, it was a very special tractor. 

“This is 1954 Super M-TA,” says Plapp. “This was my dad's first farming tractor.”

It’s also the tractor Plapp and his brother first learned to drive.

“It wasn't like some where it sits outside and rusted to death, you know, it was in a shed, but it just wasn't runnable,” he says. “Basically the carburetor had boiled up and had some pretty significant oil leaks that they repaired.”

When most people get a plaque or other gifts for retirement, Plapp received a tractor. The ultimate gift for a man who instilled lessons beyond the classroom on three decades of students he taught.

“It really touched me to the core and it was incredible gesture of love by these people. It was just something I’ll never forget,” he adds.

His Retirement Plan 

Plapp’s retirement plan is already in the works, as he plans to showcase his newly restored tractor off every chance he gets.

“I bought a trailer and a bigger truck so I can haul my tractor, because this coming spring and summer, I want to take it to some shows.”

Plapp was able to take it to the National FFA Convention this year, as well as lead the Badger FFA student in their homecoming parade this fall, showing off a gift that didn’t come from a store. No, this gift means much, much more.

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