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Student Turns His Hobby Into A Part Time Business
Blake Larson is like many high school and college-age students who use their FFA experiences to build leadership and life skills for a productive future. As a South Dakota high school senior, Larson uses his FFA Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) project to plan, document, and manage a part-time taxidermy busines
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Student Turns His Hobby Into A Part Time Business SPECIALTY/SERVICES Blake Larson is like many high school and college-age students who use their FFA experiences to build leadership and life skills for a productive future As a South Dakota high school senior Larson uses his FFA Supervised Agricultural Experience SAE project to plan document and manage a part-time taxidermy business Larson has hunted since he was 12 After he harvested his first deer his dad showed him how to de-flesh a deer skull and make a European mount After the following deer season he was doing the work himself and soon had friends and relatives asking him to do their deer skulls The word-of-mouth promotion earned him work on 21 skulls over that second winter Since then he’s done mostly deer with an occasional elk or antelope Though he’d been doing European mounts for several years it wasn’t until his FFA supervisor suggested it that Larson’s taxidermy became his SAE project Like others in FFA his project is a supervised work-based experience done outside of school hours to help develop industry and career-based competencies He documents all aspects of his work including procuring registered animal heads He details his process for producing the European mounts and all the time and costs associated with the work After the skulls are cleaned and whitened he’ll return them to his customers or mount them on custom plaques He wants to do everything legally so keeping track of his work has been a great experience “I could get into a lot of trouble if I’m not doing it right ” he says Larson’s supervisor says he’s doing a great job on his SAE and it’s been a good learning experience for him Larson says he’s interested in learning to preserve and mount fish and pheasants but he probably won’t do full head and shoulder deer mounts He plans to attend college in 2024 to major in ag business or education Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Blake Larson Wessington Springs S D
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