Ryan Camp
By
TAMMY SKRDLANT
Hub Regional Editor
WOOD RIVER
— Once upon a
time, there were two eggs: a good
egg and a bad egg.
The good egg wore a
seat belt and rode in a
tractor that was
equipped with a
rollover bar. The bad
egg forgot his seat belt
and rode in a tractor
that didn’t have safety features.
When their
tractors rolled, the good
egg remained safe, but the bad egg
was crushed.
The demonstration
about tractor safety
is one way Ryan Camp helps educate
children on the importance of farm safety.
“It’s
really good for small kids
because they see it and they like the
mess,” he said.
Camp, 17,
a Wood River High School
junior, receives the 2004 Freedom Award
in the Agriculture Category.
In Camp’s
nomination letter, Waco
Phipps of rural Kearney called Camp a
young man with high character and
morals.
“While
most teenage boys wouldn’t
be caught dead entertaining or at daycare
centers and preschools, Ryan has
been conducting puppet shows there for
many years,” Phipps said. “Ryan believes
that young kids need to be taught important
topics like safety and knows that all
young kids enjoy puppet shows.”
In other
lessons, Camp uses animal
and scarecrow puppets to teach about
safety around unfamiliar animals on the farm and in town. Although
Camp lives in Wood River, he
visits friends on farms and benefits
from safety knowledge.
“Even
if they’re not on the
farm, they have some information,”
he said.
At Safety
Day Camps, he also
teaches safety around snakes,
tractors, gravity-flow wagons
and other subjects, and has
assisted with a demonstration
showing the difference between
edible substances and chemicals
that shouldn’t be ingested.
“It’s
such a diverse group of
people I’m educating with this,”
Camp said.
Camp’s
mom, Patty, established
the Platte Valley Chapter of
Farm Safety 4 Just Kids. She
called Camp her “right-hand man”
for all the help he gives her. He
became involved at age 12 and has
helped with animal safety presentations,
St. Francis Medical Center
Health Fest, Safety Day camps
and parades, and he is on the
FS4JK planning committee. Platte
Valley was named the national
Chapter of the Year in 2003.
Patty works
at Cargill.
Through a Cargill Humanitarian
Project, Camp helped fix a family’s
house that had been infested
with mold.
“I
helped remove shingles and
stain everything. … It was a serious
health hazard,” Camp said.
In another
community service
project, Camp worked with a
nature conservancy to collect
prairie seeds for an acreage to
keep original prairie life growing.
e-mail
to:
tammy.skrdlant@kearneyhub.com
