Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 1:10 AM CDT

Tuesday’s seventh annual Ag Gala, hosted by the Agri-Business Committee of the Yankton Chamber of Commerce, featured a wine-tasting, auctions and honors in celebration of local agriculture.

But the gala, held at the Riverfront Event Center, was also about sowing the seeds for the future.

One of the big events of the night was the announcement of the recipients of the Promoting Agricultural Youth (P.A.Y.) Scholarships.

The Agri-Business Committee began the scholarship in 2008, which, at that time, was funded solely by the donations from producers and agri-businesses and money from the gala event. Now, 100 percent of the proceeds from auction items go back into funding for the scholarship.

During the first two years of the scholarship, a Yankton-area high school senior looking to go into an agriculture-related career would get $500 for his or her college expenses. However, it quickly grew to a $1,000 scholarship and now is up to $2,000, split among the two recipients.

Last year the auction helped raise $5,000 for the scholarship. This year, that number jumped up to $11,700.

“The P.A.Y. Scholarship is becoming a larger focus of the event,” said Carmen Schramm, director of Chamber Services in Yankton. “It is important to keep youth in agriculture.”

She added that the goal next year is to take the scholarship funding up to $3,000, which would be a 50 percent increase from where it is this year.

This year’s P.A.Y. Scholarship winners are Slade Mutchelknaus, who went to Freeman High School, and Timothy Sternhagen, who attended Scotland High School.

Mutchelknaus was raised on a farm near Marion, and began his own lawn service which has grown from about 10 lawns when he started it in seventh grade, to more than 30 this summer. He will pursue his degree in landscape architecture at South Dakota State University. In high school he was involved in sports, band, chorus, drama, Future Farmers of America (FFA), student council and church.

“It’s really nice to get this scholarship,” he said. “Agriculture really instills family values, morals and work ethic.”

He said he found out about the scholarship through his high school counselor last April and decided to apply. His family owns about 320 acres of property nine miles southeast of Freeman and they have about 30-40 cattle on the farm.

“My dad never pressured me to go into agriculture,” Mutchelknaus said. “He really didn’t even ask me to do too many chores on the farm.”

He mentioned that agriculture and living on a farm teaches values like working your hardest at what you’re doing, not shorthanding other people and helping out your neighbors and family.

He added that he is excited to learn more about landscape architecture when he begins his studies at SDSU this fall.

Sternhagen grew up on a family farm in the Lesterville and Scotland areas and hopes to continue farming after college. He will serve as an advisor to the FFA chapter of Scotland. In high school he was involved with mentoring, FFA, Boys State, sports, Luther League, chorus and band. Sternhagen will continue his education at USD where he will enroll in the pre-vet program. He will also be involved in the Army ROTC program.

“The scholarship is really going to help a lot with how much tuition costs now,” Sternhagen said. “It is a great honor to get something like this.

“Farming has taught me everything about life,” he added. “You need to work hard to accomplish your goals.”

Justin Wagner, who is on the committee for the scholarship, said that the funding continues to grow through the auctions that take place at the gala.

“This year we had a lot of good applicants for the scholarship,” he said. “These two winners stood out for exactly what we’re looking for.”

Wagner noted that the committee received over a dozen applications this year.

Eric Koenigs, chairperson for the Agri-Business Committee in Yankton, said that the scholarships are available for anyone who wants to go into an agriculture field.

“Nobody really focuses on agriculture or agri-business anymore,” he said. “We want to help take care of that segment through these scholarships”

Koenigs added that the two scholarship winners this year were exceptional kids, who have a history in agriculture and are dedicated to it.

Tuesday’s keynote speaker was Bruce Vincent, who is a third-generation logger from Montana. His speech focused on how to change public perceptions of rural living.

“As people in farming and forestry, we only operate with consent of the public,” Vincent said. “We lost our consent.”

He added that people from urban areas are vacationing to rural destinations and falling in love with those areas.

“They leave with a desire to protect those last best places,” he said.

The event also honored this year’s Farm Family of the Year, Bob and Marilyn Langstad from Mayfield.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at www.twitter.com/andrewatwal