“Wake up! The bus is going to leave you!” is the first thing that Ernesto Rios heard at five o’clock in the morning as he rushed into the cold shower to get ready for the Texas State Fair trip.

Students in FFA and FCCLA traveled to the Dallas State Fair on Tuesday morning to celebrate Ag awareness month with leaders Melissa Isaacs and Mikaela Hall.

“I woke up early to come to this trip but I stayed at my dad’s house the right, before” Isaacs said. “I still would have gone if I stayed in Madisonville, except I would have been tired.”

Among the students was Ernesto Rios, who is in FCCLA for the first year this year. Although the trip was free to all members, students were required to bring three canned goods to donate. Rios brought his own three plus three for a friend who forgot his.

“I might have had been almost ten minutes late to get on the bus, but I was not going to forget the canned foods,” Rios said. “It was very worth waking up early, because this trip only showed me a snippet of the fun we are going to have this year.”

Joel Avalos is a first-year FFA and FCCLA member; he attended the fair with FFA because he sold 20 fundraiser items, but he still wanted to donate canned goods and was upset he had forgotten his at home. He was thankful to Rios for helping him out.

“Ernie’s like my brother, and for him to have my back is awesome,” Avalos said. “Although we spent time with our girls at the fair, we still spent a lot of time looking at the car shows together, which was pretty amazing!”