A local FFA adviser and agriculture teacher recently received a substantial grant in recognition of her exceptional work in the classroom.

Elaine Rudolphi moved to Waterloo quite recently, starting her career in ag education just about a year ago.

Rudolphi said she’s originally from Olney and was raised on a row crop farm growing soybeans and corn as well as raising cattle.

She had a tremendous interest in farming, taking an ag class every year of high school while also staying active in the Richland County High School FFA chapter.

After graduating, she attended Wabash Valley Community College for two years, obtaining a double associates in agribusiness and ag production before transferring to Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2020, where she earned a bachelors in agriculture education.

Rudolphi credited her former FFA advisers with sparking and building her interest in the ag field. She recalled how they pushed her toward education by pointing out how well she worked with and assisted her classmates.

Though she said she pursued other potential interests, she ultimately found her niche in ag education, landing at Waterloo High School.

“I originally applied for the ag teacher position, and then when they offered it to me, I accepted because Waterloo is a phenomenal school, and the town… as soon as I drove in to interview, the town just seemed so familiar to me,” Rudolphi said. “It felt like home, so then I decided to take the job and live over here.”

As an ag teacher, Rudolphi said she covers a variety of subjects ranging from horticulture to vet technologies as well as bioscience, plant and animal science and the underlying genetics which are so vital to modern agriculture. She also oversees the school’s greenhouse.

Rudolphi said she hopes, in both her roles as teacher and FFA adviser, to provide students with a broad understanding of ag, allowing them the same sorts of opportunities she had in school.

“I do my best to give students all the opportunities that I have available in order for them to just gain skills and kind of explore the ag industry,” Rudolphi said. “And I can truly say that some students come back to me and told me that it is because of the way that I teach and the way that I approach different things that they were able to expand their knowledge and look into different things that they might not have.”

This approach to her teaching seems to have caught the attention of the IAA Foundation, a charity organization which works with the Illinois Farm Bureau to support agriculture and ag education throughout the state.

Rudolphi was one of four recently announced recipients of the Illinois Agricultural Education Teacher Grant Program, a grant meant to financially support ag teachers as concerns about young people entering and staying in education have increased in recent years.

Per the IAA Foundation website, the grant is rewarded to four new teachers each year. Lasting five years, the grant could award each teacher up to $10,000 should they “remain successful in the classroom.”

Rudolphi said she applied for the grant some time ago and, as part of the application, had to establish long-term goals for both herself and the Waterloo FFA chapter.

She explained the grant will simply provide her with some additional income to ease any financial concerns she might have as a new teacher.

“I don’t have to go home and worry about budgeting,” Rudolphi said. “It gives me a little extra cash so that way I can spend more of my time on creating a good FFA chapter, on planning for my classes and whatnot.”

Monroe County Farm Bureau Manager Erin Dierkes, who appears alongside Rudolphi in a video about the grant shared by the IAA Foundation, expressed great praise for Rudolphi and the work she’s doing in the community.

In the video, Dierkes commended Rudolphi’s passion for her job as well as the way she is able to get her students to work together.

She echoed this sentiment in an interview with the Republic-Times.

“I think Elaine is very deserving of this grant,” Dierkes said. “I can tell last year she worked really hard with the students. And I think this grant will be great for the Waterloo FFA chapter also, just to keep helping them grow.”

Rudolphi further discussed the impact she expects the grant to have for her, also noting how flattering it is to have her teaching skills be recognized.

“To me it means the world that someone out there thinks I’m going to do good in someone else’s life, and they’re going to support me to allow me to make that change happen,” Rudolphi said. “I think it can not only impact me and give me more passion to go in and be a better ag teacher, but also allow the students to see that passion of essentially instill in them a passion of their own for agriculture.”

Rudolphi said she has plenty of plans for her class and FFA chapter going forward. One of her biggest goals is to make the school greenhouse entirely student-run, allowing her to step away so students can get an even greater deal of horticulture experience.

Rudolphi also spoke more about her hopes to provide students with an ag experience just as positive and beneficial as the one she had growing up.

“I wanna create a chapter where it’s super inclusive and everyone feels like they can have a place to call home because I knew growing up that the ag department was some place where I could go hang out if I needed help, that I wasn’t afraid to ask questions or learn or grow or make mistakes,” Rudolphi said. “Essentially, that’s what I plan to do here at Waterloo is just continue to grow our chapter and the ag department to its fullest potential.”

For more information on the IAA Foundation and its teacher grant program, visit iaafoundation.org.