As of 8:54 Saturday, September 23, the fall season arrived and with fall comes cooler weather, leaves changing colors and, of course, fall decorations.

This year, the Clinton County FFA is in full mum mode as FFA Advisor Ben Prewitt has been working for weeks to secure enough mums to sell for the FFA’s Fall Mum Drive.

Proceeds will benefit the FFA and makes up about 40 percent of the year’s total fundraising for the school organization.

“We have about 50 percent of our fundraising that comes from the spring greenhouse and about 10 percent that comes from candy sales and other things, so this mum sale is about 40 percent of our total fundraising for the year,” Prewitt said. “Last year we per-sold 483 mums. We have well over 500 for this year. We appreciate any support we can get.”

Most of the money raised from the mums will help get 13 or 14 FFA students to the fall convention in October.

“Part of this money will also help fund a trip to the North American Livestock Show and Rodeo and that’s coming up in November,” Prewitt said. “We will probably end up having another fund-raiser around Christmas time with the Poinsettias, which will also supplement some trips in the spring. It won’t completely take care of all of it for the kids, but it will help out and that’s the main goal. We want to keep it at a minimum so they don’t have to pay so much.”

Prewitt said the best way is to pre-order, but mums will be available throughout the week up until 4 p.m. each weekday.

“We ended up buying a few extra, but we encourage people to pre-order,” Prewitt said. “If people are still wanting them they can come in and we will have plenty. There will be a few Saturdays I will be here for the next couple of weeks if anybody wanted to come in and pick some up.”

This year’s stock of mums are, according to Prewitt, not the typical mums.

“Every mum is 35 to 40 inches around,” Prewitt said. “They are not the type of mum you are going to find at a Lowe’s or a Walmart. These are grown right on the farm and they are big, pretty and full.”

This year’s mum colors will include red, white, yellow, purple or orange.

Other than being a great fund raiser for the students, Prewitt said there is an educational aspect to selling these mums.

“One thing is marketing,” Prewitt said. “I encourage all the FFA members to get out and try to market these. Getting out and talking to the general public is something I don’t think a kid could get enough of. We do some transplanting and we will have to take some out of the pots and the kids do all the maintenance and watering and picking the dead buds off the plants.”

Prewitt said he hauls the mums to Clinton County High School, but other than that, the students do all the other work.

“It’s the kids’ project. They kind of do it all. I just take care of the paperwork part,” Prewitt said. “I’ve got close to 200 kids day in and day out and for the most part all 200 of them aren’t scared to come out here and get dirty and they enjoy it. It gets us out of the classroom and gets them to doing some actual agriculture work where they can use their hands.”

Prewitt said mums this season are priced at $15 each, or two for $27, with pre-orders being over, remaining mums can be purchased by going to the high school, entering through the front door security and asking for him, any weekday up to 4:00 p.m.