Jared Brinegar is heading back to Indianapolis.

This time, the Wellsville-Middletown graduate will be going there to pick up a big honor. He was selected to earn an American FFA Degree for his contributions during his four years with the W-M FFA chapter.

“It really made all of my years in FFA at school fulfill the dream,” said Brinegar, who graduated from W-M in 2021. “I’ve done everything I think I could have done. All of the hard work and long hours finally paid off.”

The American FFA Degree is the highest honor anyone in the National FFA Organization can achieve. Brinegar will receive his award at the National FFA Convention & Expo, scheduled for Oct. 26-29 at Indianapolis.

Brinegar said he found out about his honor from his mother, Deidre, who saw a post on Facebook.

“I’m really excited for it,” Brinegar said. “It’s the highest degree you can get in FFA. It will kind of complete the circle for everything. It will give me a chance to go back to Indianapolis one more time.”

Brinegar went to the Indiana city in his junior year to attend the national convention. He didn’t go there in his senior year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They had a virtual one, but it wasn’t quite the same thing,” Brinegar said. “It wasn’t the same feeling of going to Indianapolis for the weekend and being around everybody else from different states and all of that kind of stuff.”

Brinegar served as treasurer for the W-M FFA in his senior year. He said he enjoyed working with Samantha Bohr, who worked as the chapter’s adviser before stepping down after the 2020-2021 school year.

“Mrs. Bohr was one of my favorite ag teachers in school from the time I was in seventh grade when I started taking ag classes to the time I was a senior,” Brinegar said. “It was a blast. She was interactive. She made it fun. She helped you with anything you really needed. She was the one who helped me fill out a lot of paperwork.”

The American FFA Degree is awarded to an FFA member who showed outstanding leadership abilities and was highly involved in the community. To be eligible for the honor, members must receive a state FFA degree, become an active FFA member for three years, complete instruction in an agricultural education program and operate a supervised agriculture experience (SAE) program. Brinegar received his state degree in his senior year.

“In the class before me, four of them got it,” Brinegar said. “It proves that it doesn’t matter how small the school you go to, you can still get it. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, you could always do everything you possibly can, you can still try your hardest, work your hardest in everything and put in long hours and you can still achieve it.”

Brinegar graduated from State Technical College in May after completing a one-year heavy equipment operation program. He’s currently farming with one of his friends.