Just like new

Bureau Valley High School students Dustin Vainowski (from left), Richard Brummel, Tyler Kennedy and Kody Thomas display the 1946 John Deere A tractor renovated by students during the 2008-09 school year. This is the fourth tractor renovated by BV students, and it will be once again entered in the National Chevron Delo Tractor Restoration Competition. The school has placed in the Top 10 twice during the last two years. (BCR photo/Barb Kromphardt)

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MANLIUS — What is it that makes fixing rusty, broken, old tractors such a great learning experience for Bureau Valley High School students?

“It’s coming out and learning,” said Dustin Vainowski. “It’s making something that you had to push up onto the trailer walk itself onto the trailer at the end of the year.”

Students at Bureau Valley have completed renovations on their fourth tractor, this one a 1946 John Deere A that was donated by Dolores Teske in memory of Orville Teske.
The process began back in November. For junior Richard Brummel, it was his third renovation, but in a lot of ways, it was all brand-new.

“This was our first John Deere and our first two-cylinder,” he said. “Two-cylinders are a lot different than four-cylinders. There’s no driveshaft, you go straight from the crankshaft to the clutch to the transmission.”

There were other differences, as well.

“We couldn’t tear this one down all the way like we have in the past and completely tear it apart because it’s just such a large frame and everything’s just bolted right onto the frame,” he said.

Brummel has a reputation among his classmates for knowing a lot about tractors. For fellow junior Tyler Kennedy, the Deere was his second tractor, and he said he’s learned a lot by working with Brummel and teacher Willard Mott.

“Going in the first year really I didn’t even know the components of the engine or how they ran,” Kennedy said. “It’s fun to see an old piece of equipment that doesn’t run turn into a beautiful finished product.”

In addition to bringing the tractors back to life, Kennedy and the other students enjoy hanging out together.

“The camaraderie with your friends, it’s just a lot of fun,” he said.

And that group of friends is ever changing. Sophomore Cody Thomas said there were even more students involved this year, including a lot of freshmen who wanted to help. Those freshmen were welcomed, because they’re the key to the future of the renovations.

“We kind of want to get them involved so when these guys, like Tyler and Richard, when they graduate and when we graduate, well Richard knows pretty much everything so hopefully they learn a little bit from him and will be able to know how to do it,” Thomas said.

While many of the students live and breathe tractors — Gearheads is the appropriate term, according to Brummel — there’s also room for the less-devoted. Vainowski has worked only part-time on the last two tractors, due to football and track obligations. But he’s still welcome whenever he can make it.

“I just enjoy coming out and learning something new,” he said. “Mr. Mott and Richard are real good about teaching us new things.”

Mott is nothing but smiles as he hears his students talk about the tractor project.
“It’s so exciting to see students motivated and interested in doing and working on a project like this,” he said.

Mott said one question he often hears is why the students renovate a tractor every year.
“Something we’ve stumbled upon here, is we’ve done four different makes and each one, as Richard said, has the same basic concepts but they’re put together and engineered in such different manner,” he said. “You take two 1946s, you put a Farmall and a John Deere next to each other. Yes, they’re similar in concept, similar in their operation, but the engineering that’s behind them is different. Each one poses a challenge, you learn new things.”

Another reason he has the students work on a project each year has nothing to do with tractor mechanics.

“Every year we recruit new freshmen and we get some new faces,” Mott said. “Now, after we’ve done it for a number of years, we’re having the veterans, the seniors and the leaders who have done it before, helping to direct the sophomores and freshmen, or even the junior or senior who hasn’t done it but finally found time. The interaction among the students, it really is tremendous for high school students to be able to work so well together.”

Mott said the renovation process offers the students a real taste of their future workplace environments.

“There are stressful situations, there’s problem solving, there’s personality conflicts, and so it’s not all joyous all the time,” he said. “But as far as interaction among students, they learn how to have fun together, work together and struggle together, and they’re realizing an argument today doesn’t mean a fight forever. They can disagree, but they still show up the next day and they’re still motivated to do it.”