PENDLETON, Ore. (AP) — A Pendleton, Ore., woman is now an honorary member of Future Farmers of America decades after being denied entry into the group as a 14-year-old girl.
The 96-year-old Margaret Troedson donned the agriculture group’s distinctive blue jacket after the Pendleton FFA chapter awarded her an honorary degree Saturday night.
The East Oregonian reports (http://bit.ly/Ifzj28 ) Troedson wanted to take agriculture classes as a teen, but first had to join the school’s FFA chapter. The high school principal in Redmond, where she was living, denied her request for membership to the group, thereby barring her from agriculture classes.
Troedson says at the time no girl had asked to take agriculture classes and the principal thought it would be too distracting.
She says girls today should proudly call themselves farmers.
