Once a year, 15-year-old Brandt Hiestand gets a taste of the

kind of independence every teenager longs for.

"It's the one day out of the year I can drive myself to school and no one can really say I can't," says Brandt, a sophomore at South Central High School in Farina, Ill.

"I milked it last year," says Alec Langley, a South Central sophomore. "I definitely had my fill of fun. It's a little dose of freedom."

That freedom tops out at about 20 miles per hour, because the wheels Brandt and Alec are so excited to drive happen to be attached to a tractor. And the annual tradition they're so excited about is Drive Your Tractor To School Day, or Tractor Day, as they call it. Marked by rural high schools across the Midwest, Tractor Day is the culmination of National Future Farmers of America Week, which takes place every February.

Source: NPR