Students celebrate Drive Your Tractor to School Day

March 30 (UPI) — The parking lot at a Michigan high school filled with farm equipment for the school’s annual Drive Your Tractor to School Day.

Students at Fremont High School rode their tractors to school Thursday as part of an annual tradition that began 14 years ago when a group of students conspired to hold an unofficial event.

The school’s parking lot was filled with at least 40 tractors before classes even began Thursday, and officials said more tractors were parked outside the town’s middle and elementary schools.

“It’s a celebration by the Fremont Public Schools of the farming community in which we live,” Superintendent Ken Haggart told Mlive.com. “It gives us an opportunity to recognize the importance of farming in our community.”

Haggart said tractor day is “one of the highlights of the school year.”

“Between Daisy Brook Elementary — yes, we have younger kids who drive lawn tractors — to our middle school and high school kids, we may have as many as 50 tractors,” Haggart said.

Some students said it takes them up to two hours to drive the slow-moving farm vehicles from their homes to the schools.

Officials said Drive Your Tractor to School Day has become a full-day affair, with several other agriculture-themed events behind held throughout the day.