Ag teachers are in short supply in Nebraska, making the truly great ones stand out even more. Joel Miller, ag teacher at Hampton Public Schools for 19 years, has gone above and beyond for his students. He will be honored for his efforts and innovation with an Educator of the Year award from Nebraska’s Natural Resource Districts in September at their annual conference.
Miller was also recognized in June 2025 with the prestigious Golden Owl award from the Nebraska FFA Foundation, Nebraska Agricultural Education Association (NAEA), and Nationwide Insurance. Miller is a past president of NAEA and was an officer for a three-year term representing Nebraska at the national level at conferences. In 2020 he was named Nebraska’s Outstanding Teacher from this organization. He was also recently recognized by Hamilton County 4-H for his community service.
Though he’s been making an impact in the classroom and representing his profession at the state and national levels for more than two decades, Miller’s dedication to ag education goes back much further. Through his own formative experiences with ag education as a student at Aurora High School, he knew he wanted to be an ag teacher himself one day and pay it forward. He attended Northwest Missouri State University where he earned a bachelor’s in agriculture education. He also earned a master’s degree from Peru State College in curriculum and instruction. Prior to teaching in Hampton, he started his career teaching at Cambridge Public Schools. He has touched the lives of hundreds of students through this work, including more than 300 FFA students who have earned state degrees under his supervision. His goal for students is for them to be well-rounded and career/college-ready by the time they graduate.
One of his proudest recent achievements was establishing an animal lab and the Hawk Herd at Hampton Public Schools to provide hands-on educational opportunities for students in animal production. The Hawk Herd allows students the opportunity to raise beef cattle from birth to harvest. The cattle were purchased using grant funds and raised on land adjacent to the school grounds. The students care for the livestock and when the beef is harvested, it is served in the school cafeteria. They maintain five breeding animals for this program.
There is more to careers in ag than animal care. Miller also revamped the welding and metal working program at Hampton Public Schools in hopes to get more students interested in those trades. He teaches a small engines unit with machines donated from Aurora Co-op. Miller has students tear engines apart and put them back together, with the additional guidance of a co-teacher who is a local mechanic. Miller likes community partnerships for better student preparation, such as the partnership he has with Bamesberger Welding and Danish Oak.
Miller has built a long tradition of success in land judging for the students of the Hampton Public Schools. He teaches soil and plant science, as well as conservation concepts that cover classroom objectives and strengthen students’ knowledge for the land judging contest. Stewardship of soil is important to Miller, as he teaches students how to care for the land and prevent future Dust Bowl-like scenarios. His teams have qualified for nationals for land judging in 2007, 2009, 2022, and 2023. His teams have qualified for state and been close to qualifying for nationals several times.
In addition to his classroom efforts, Miller has shown extraordinary leadership as the Nebraska state coordinator for land judging contests. Miller began serving as the assistant state land judging contest coordinator in 2014. In 2016 he was promoted to state coordinator and took over full leadership of the program. In this role he has increased the size of the contest as well as introduced technology to make the contest easier to run. When he started assisting with these contests in 2014, there were 1,428 students participating from 76 schools across the state. In the most recent year’s contest, there were 1,969 students from 110 schools participating. Through his leadership of this program, more students have been able to participate and learn about soil conservation. His success in this effort is important for the future for students pursuing soil sciences and other natural resources related careers.
