FFA programs provide update on Ingels family donation

In March of 2023, the family of the late Marvin and Melvena Ingels, third-generation farmers who owned land in the Netawaka and Whiting area, made donations of more than $330,000 to each of the FFA programs at two Jackson County high schools — Holton and Jackson Heights — and to the Heart of Jackson Humane Society.

The two high school FFA programs have so far used their funds to benefit their members, but at Jackson Heights, some of the funds have also been used to create a “putt-putt” miniature golf course designed to honor the Ingels’ commitment to agriculture — and give visitors to JHHS an opportunity to have some fun.

“Sometimes, people use donated funds to dedicate benches, or a tree, or something like that,” said Paul Lierz, ag teacher and FFA adviser at JHHS. “We wanted to create something that the community could use, and this course is free for them to use.”

Work on the nine-hole, par-two miniature golf course, located near the gazebo at the JHHS entrance, is done, Lierz said, and golf clubs and balls are available for visitors to the course to borrow. But there’s still some work he’d like to see done on the course that would make it more interesting.

“Ideally, I’d like each hole to represent a farm animal and have a placard that has facts about that animal,” he said. “We’d also like to have statues of farm animals around each hole, so if it was a hole that represented pigs, we’d have some pig statues, and they could also serve as obstacles around the hole.”

Donations received by the FFA programs at Holton and Jackson Heights have also been used to benefit those programs, according to Lierz and to Meghan Lockwood and Jason Larison, speaking on behalf of the FFA program. Lockwood took over as FFA program adviser this year at HHS after Larison, who had been guiding the program for more than three decades, retired from Holton and was then employed by the neighboring Royal Valley district.

“We were very blessed as a program to receive this generous gift,” Lockwood and Larison said in a joint statement that detailed how the Ingels estate’s donation has been serving the FFA program at HHS.

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