How Billings and Ward revived a 1950 Ford 8N and caught the attention of collectors nationwide

NORTH ROBINSON, OH (CRAWFORD COUNTY NOW)—When Colonel Crawford seniors Gage Billings and Keegan Ward tore into a dusty 1950 Ford 8N last August, they thought they were just helping with the FFA’s spring raffle. They didn’t expect the project to turn into the chapter’s biggest raffle ever — or to reach tractor collectors in more than a dozen states.

Back in August, Tim Bell, a custodian at the school, had an old 1950 Ford 8N sitting around in need of restoration, so he donated it to the Colonel Crawford FFA chapter to be used in the spring raffle.

“We jumped into this project the first week of school. We had it torn apart, then hit a stopping point for a while, but we wanted it done for the Colonel Crawford Fall Festival the first week of October,” Billings said.

In the few days before the Fall Festival, the duo had it sandblasted, put new tires on it, and got it to a show-ready point so it could be displayed at the festival and used to sell tickets.

This tractor, unlike others they had worked on in school, wasn’t their run-of-the-mill project.

“It was a learning experience. I don’t think we’ve ever worked on a small tractor like that. It’s not set up the same as any other tractor we’ve worked on. Everything is usually one piece and comes off altogether. Overall, I’d say the process was more tedious,” Ward said.

With the teardown and repairs behind them, the next major hurdle was giving the tractor a fresh coat of paint.

“I’d say we have about a month into the painting process. The letters on the front are hand-painted, and a lot of touch-ups were done,” Billings said.

Painting the tractor proved to be its own challenge.

“It’s actually kind of hard. Painting is not an easy thing to do on a tractor, specifically because no surface is actually flat. It’s really easy to put too much on or not enough or miss a spot,” Ward said. “There were a couple of days that Gage and I took a couple of paint brushes, or he would go back with an air gun.”

Between paint, tires, wiring, and sandblasting, the FFA chapter invested about $2,500 into the restoration.

The most difficult part, the boys agreed, was getting the hood right.

“Gage and I probably spent a week and a half Bondo-sanding. We primed it, and it still wasn’t right, so we stripped all the paint back off, Bondoed it again, and we finally had it right enough to do what we needed to do,” Ward said. “It was kind of the same story with the side shields, too. They were kind of rough. That was kind of a nightmare to get right.”

Fortunately, the tractor itself appeared to be a low-hour machine, with few mechanical issues to fight through.

The work the boys put into restoring the tractor was just the beginning of what would become the FFA chapter’s biggest and most successful raffle. To boost ticket sales, the boys took the project a step further: they bought a page in the national farm magazine Iron Heritage, advertising the raffle and explaining how to purchase tickets.

“We were all sitting there in the shop, joking about how to sell more tickets, and I was like, ‘What if we put it in a magazine?’” Ward said. “It was more of a joke that day, then the next day we started writing everything up on the board, got it priced, and I think that next week we had it scheduled to be in a magazine.”

With the help of their English teacher, Mrs. Parsons, the boys put together a short article that was sent off for the January and March issues of the magazine.

The response stunned them: the ad drew interest from across the country.

Since the ad ran, 64 tickets have been sold in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Louisiana, Missouri, Iowa, North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, New York, Nebraska, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Mississippi — all from the magazine listing alone.

“It’s pretty surreal, honestly. We live in Bucyrus with a population of 11,000 people. You don’t expect to be going 1,000, 1,200 miles away and getting a letter back,” Ward said. “Some old guy telling you how much he appreciates that some small local school in Ohio is doing this stuff. It’s something I never would have thought we’d be doing as 18-year-olds.”

Billings agreed.

“It’s been cool to see some of the feedback from some of the older guys. There was one who told us about all of the cars and tractors in his collection,” Billings said. “It’s cool to see that there are still people passionate about it, that they care — care enough to write a letter. It just kind of shows you that you wish there was more stuff like this around.”

If someone from out of state wins the tractor, transportation can be arranged within reason, though a delivery fee may apply.

But for the boys, the project wasn’t only about restoring a tractor — it was about giving back.

They decided that $1,500 of the proceeds would be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital — a nod to Bell, who does extensive fundraising for the organization.

“They came up with the dollar amount, and it’s just kind of neat to see that. You harp about our organization giving back to the community and thinking about and caring for others, and then when they come up with it and actually do something, it gives me goosebumps,” ag teacher Josh Schieber said. “Our job — industrial arts teacher Austin Strouse’s and mine — is done. These guys have come full circle, and now we’re going to take a pretty sizeable donation and give back to somebody else. That’s really cool to see.”

Reflecting on the project, the boys say they’re going to miss the little tractor that didn’t fit either of their preferences but definitely grew on them over the course of the school year. They both agreed that they’ve had fun with the project — made a lot of mistakes, but learned a lot in the process. It wasn’t their first restoration, either. This is the third tractor the pair has restored and raffled off, following a John Deere A and a Farmall Cub.

With the boys graduating this spring, they hope others will follow in their footsteps and continue what they started.

They emphasized that continuing the tradition matters because the real learning happens in the work itself. 

Both agreed that by just looking at a diagram of a tractor, you’re still going to have no idea how it works until you start tearing it apart – you can read all the books you want, but you won’t learn anything unless you do it. 

“We came into it with a general idea, and a general idea is not much compared to what you actually need to know to do this. Most of it, we just learned on the fly, just from tearing stuff apart and looking at it and going, ‘Well, how does it go back together?’” Ward said. “You’ve got to make mistakes. You’ve got to be willing to screw something up to learn anything. You don’t always succeed the first time.”

“I never touched a paint gun prior to doing the Farmall Cub, and now I’ve participated in painting five tractors, one of them being my own,” Billings said. 

Both Gage and Keegan thanked Schieber and Strouse for their help on the project, stating that none of it would have been possible without them.

Tickets

Anyone interested in purchasing tickets for the 8N can email ccraffle@gmail.com. Tickets are $20, and checks should be made out to CC FFA and mailed to:

Payment must be received by March 31, as the winner will be drawn April 1 at the FFA Banquet. The winner does not need to be present.

With the banquet drawing close and the mailing timeline getting tight, Schieber said arrangements may be possible for local buyers — if someone contacts the school by email, phone, or text, arrangements for an FFA member to deliver tickets in person may be possible.