Four Rivers Career Center’s Night Shift program headed for national event

The Night Shift program is headed to the Red Power Roundup.

Night Shift is an extracurricular activity offered through the Four Rivers Career Center where students restore old tractors and other vehicles. The program has been around since 2008 and is gaining notoriety in the school and across the country. Students meet after the school day ends, bring old farm equipment back to life and generally have fun.

The Red Power Roundup is a national event that this year is celebrating 100 years of Farmall tractors, at Fonner Park in Grand Island, Nebraska.

The 2023 event begins Thursday, June 15, and runs till Saturday, June 17, and features motorized exhibits, memorabilia, old tractors, engine displays, track and steel wheel tractors, live music and a parade each day.

This year's Roundup also will include the Washington Night Shift students and their Farmall tractors they’ve worked on over the years.

From left, Sara O’Bannon, Sierra Oloyed, Calvin Kelpe, Izzy Parker, Grant Cottrell, Logan Gerard, Edward Kessler and Henry Roetheli pose with this year's completed restoration project. The 1937 Farmall F20 tractor will be going with the students to the 2023 Red Power Roundup later this month.

Once Howard Raymond, from the Red Power Roundup, heard about FRCC's Automotive Technology Instructor Dan Brinkmann and the Night Shift program, he wanted to learn more.

What he discovered is a group comprised of Four Rivers Career Center students from eleven sending high schools who are enrolled in any of the 15 programs throughout the building. Qualified students learn valuable work and life skills through restoring antique tractors. Students get together at the beginning of each year and choose their restoration projects for the year and work diligently two nights a week during the school year to complete them.

Night Shift students hold themselves to high standards in order to join and complete the program.

"The goal of Night Shift is not to build a tractor," Brinkmann explained. "It's about building confident young individuals to go out to be more than their occupation." And it's not all about restoration work, Brinkmann also teaches members how to dance and cook by having them take turns cooking meals for each other.

He said the program gives high school students the chance to better themselves and help better their community by volunteering their time to bridge the gap between entry level employees and seasoned employees in their future careers. During the restoration process, students are responsible for the restoration, documentation and entry into the Delo Tractor Restoration Competition, a national tractor restoration contest sponsored by Chevron Delo.

Sara O’Bannon paints the back tire of a this year's Night Shift tractor project, a Farmall F20, red.

"Since I volunteer my time for these kids, they have to earn their way in with my rules, which are good grades, attendance, attitude, no missed homework assignments and we work on whatever Mr. Brickmann wants to work on," said Brinkmann. "It's not always, but mostly we work on trucks and tractors."

Night Shift first started out as a motorcycle class where students would come after school and gain knowledge on motorcycles and similar machines. But on Nov. 28, 2012, Brinkmann brought in the first tractor, a 1948 Ford 8N owned by Erwin Brinkmann, for the group to work on.

"A buddy of mine had an old motorcycle that he wanted to fix, and it's not part of my curriculum so I thought, ‘How am I gonna do this?’ " Brinkmann said. "I thought ‘What if I do it in the evening and use it to motivate kids that could go either way?’ So I started it, we built this motorcycle and once it started and they were hooting and hollering, jumping and running around the shop, I knew it worked."

Brinkmann said most of the tractors the students work on are owned by friends of his. But his rule is, if their tractor is chosen, they must provide him and students access to the tractor for shows.

For the 2013-2014 school year, the students worked on a 941 Ford Diesel owned by Jack Brinker. During this restoration, Brinkmann noticed tractors attracted students more than motorcycles did.

During the 2014-2015 school year, students worked on another Ford tractor owned by Brinker. This one was a Ford 961. This tractor arrived at Four Rivers in several pieces, on several pallets.

Brinkmann then brought in a tractor that February that he and his uncle Jim owned together, a 1966 Massey Ferguson 180, for a full restoration. The students finished it a week after school ended.

That project was Brinkmann's favorite.

"I’m partial to that tractor because it was the first tractor I was ever set on and it was the very first tractor I ever drove," said Brinkmann.

Night Shift members Edward Kessler, left, and Grant Cottrell, right, work on a 1937 Farmall F20 at Four Rivers Career Center.

For the following school year in 2016, Night Shift students were asked by the Knights of Columbus to restore a 1948 Farmall "C," owned by Jim Buccann, for their 10th "Journey for Charity Tractor Cruise." At the end of the cruise, the tractor was taken all around the state to different shows and eventually raffled off. It was bought by the local NAPA Auto Parts store and now is displayed inside the store. This tractor project encouraged students to enter the Chevron Delo Tractor Restoration Competition where they made it to the top 12 finalists.

The Night Shift members also worked on a 1949 John Deere "A," owned by Allen Shepard, for a local high school's FFA Chapter. Brinkmann said the tractor was rough, the engine was seized and there were holes in the sheet metal. But that didn't stop the students from turning it into another masterpiece. They began by taking the tractor apart, labeling everything, sandblasting, flap wheeling, body filling and painting. Once put back together, the group entered it into the Delo Tractor Restoration Competition where they placed third and took home $3,000 for another restoration.

For the 2018-2019 school year, students worked on a Farmall "H" for Don Groene and his family. This tractor was also placed in the Delo Tractor Restoration Competition where they placed in the top 12 for the 2019 competition.

Another tractor was brought to the Night Shift students for the 2019-2020 school year. This tractor was another Farmall "H" that was donated to Four Rivers Tractor Club. Students worked diligently up until the end of 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic halted the tractor's restoration due to most students dropping out, except for one. Logan Williams, with the help of Brinkmann, finished the tractor in Brinkmann's shop and he entered it in the 2020 Delo Tractor Restoration Competition, where he was a top 12 finalist.

Once the pandemic settled, students worked on a 1956 Ford 600 tractor, given to the students on Oct. 29 by Roscoe Mayer, for the 2020-2021 school year. After months of hard work and countless hours, students were able to present the tractor at a show in Perryville on May 29, 2021, before returning it to Mayer.

This year's project was a 1937 Farmall F20 tractor.

When Brinkmann and Night Shift were invited to attend the 2023 Red Power Roundup, they could barely believe it.

"I would get goosebumps," he said. "We’re getting excited, because we’re actually going to Red Power, and we’re in the middle of the dance floor."

Sara O’Bannon, second from right, and Izzy Parker, right, watch as Calvin Kelpe, left, and Edward Kessler, second from left, check the front tires of the 1937 Farmall F20.

Because of the work Brinkmann has put in with his students, he's been asked to give a presentation at the event.

"Howard Raymond wants me to do a presentation, not as a tractor restoration expert, but as an educator and how I got young kids involved in restoration."

This year, Brinkmann said there were about ten students in the Night Shift program: two seniors, one junior, one sophomore and the rest freshman.

"There's an essential recruitment process where some returning kids will talk about it and other students will become interested," he said. "I kind of let the kids that have been in it before recruit for me, for them because they’ve got to work with that individual."

Isabella "Izzy" Parker, 2023 Washington High School graduate, said she loves Night Shift.

"I like the work that we do," she said. "But we’re also like a family. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we come after school and somebody cooks most of the time. (Brinkmann) tried to make us learn how to dance and stuff, but we’ve just been working so much. We actually got the tractor finished that they’ve been working on for three years, I think. And now we got another big project, so that's been taking up a lot of our time."

Parker said she has always been into automotive.

"I took graphics because I liked art too, but then I realized I couldn't see myself following through with it," she said. "So I decided to take automotive and it's worked out really good for me. We started out doing bodywork on the old farm tractor that we rebuilt, and then we’re doing engine work on the big Detroit semi-truck."

Calvin Kelpe, another 2023 Washington High School graduate, said he plans on attending State Technical College of Missouri in Linn but hopes to come back next year to help out Brinkmann and the Night Shift group.

From left, Izzy Parker, Sara O’Bannon, Grant Cottrell and John Vogel stand around the 1937 Farmall F20 while Parker talks to them about the tractor's engine parts.

"I always liked turning wrenches," he said. "When I was little I started working on smaller engines and I really understood it, more than schoolwork. I did this program for three years. I took automotive last year and this year I took machining."

These students spend their entire school year putting their heart and soul into these tractors, but by the end they’re able to see what they’ve help create.

"When we take it somewhere, I tell them, ‘Your machine is there with you,’ " said Brinkmann. " ‘You have to put your hand on your work, you have to own it.’ "

Though Brinkmann enjoys seeing these tractors come back to life, his favorite part of Night Shift is seeing the spark in his students’ eyes.

"They start to realize it," he said. "I had a student, they did all the work and when she got to see it done for the first time, I thought she would levitate. I told her to put her hand up against the paint and said, ‘What do you see?’ She goes, ‘I see my hand.’ I expected that answer. I said, ‘Look closer, that's your work. You’re in there. That's you, you’re in there and nobody can take you out of it.’ "

To learn more about the Four Rivers Career Center's Night Shift program, visit frcc.washington.k12.mo.us/. For the 2023 Red Power Roundup schedule, visit rpru2023.com/.