RIPON — A group of Future Farmers of America students gave their national FFA Week a high profile Thursday when they drove their farm tractors some three miles to their classes at Ripon High School.

Following a school tradition that saw some 20 tractors and other farm implements last year driving out of the rural RHS farm on North Ripon Road and South Clinton Road, ag students again gathered for the rolling trek to school at 7 a.m.

While there were only eight in the caravan of ag vehicles this year it was no less exciting for the motoring public going to work and taking their children to school.  School resource officer Trevor McGinnis led the caravan with lights flashing.

The farm equipment on the move was a sight to see for both northbound and southbound commuters on Highway 99 as the group topped the Wilma Avenue Overpass approaching the roundabout just north of city hall.

When the students reached the roundabout on Wilma Avenue they picked up another student who was waiting for them and parked on the side of the road sitting on his cream and orange tractor.  The caravan inched its way slowly to West Main Street where yet another student was idling at the corner anxious to join his fellow students.

The newest member of the parade was cut off by traffic, but the largest tractor in the group pulled to the side of the roadway as did the trailing police car.  Motorists were held up momentarily to allow the student to pull into the line of march.

The tractors went east on Main Street to Acacia Avenue and north to the high school parking lot where they circled around the multi-purpose room, parking in front of the gym where the drivers posed for a group picture in front of their equipment.

Those pieces of farm equipment had been parked at the scheduled 7:30, just in time for the first class of the day.