Floyd Farm School: Breaking Ground
~ The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on November 7, 2013
The Floyd County High School broke ground at its new Farm School on Saturday, November 2nd. Teachers, parents, students and farmers were among those who gathered to watch the first quarter acre of the sixteen acre piece plowed by two teams of draft horses. Donated to the school by the Shelor Family Foundation, the property is off 221, near Canning Factory Road.
“This is cool,” said one agriculture student who watched the horse plowing. FCHS Agriculture teacher Joe Tesauro invited onlookers to walk along the field as it was being plowed. Some pulled out large rocks and hauled them off in buckets.
The School farm will give agriculture students hands-on experience growing food, said Tesauro. A first crop of potatoes will be planted in the spring and the harvest will be used in school cafeteria lunches in conjunction with SustainFloyd’s “farm to school” program.
“We’re hopeful this will be a start of good things to come,” said Floyd County School Superintendent Kevin Harris, who attended the groundbreaking.
Post note: The Roanoke Times story on the groundbreaking is HERE. It was picked up by the Associated Press and the Washington Post.
Photos: 1. Jagger Rutledge (right) and Jason Rutledge of Healing Harvest Forest Foundation and Draftwood Forest Products ready their Suffolk horses for plowing, as a crowd of bystanders watch. 2. Hauling rocks from the contour plowed earth. 3. Agriculture teacher Joe Tesauro, wife Caroline and son Silas (an older child was napping) pose in front of a small building on the farm school site that Tesaruo said could be a school farm stand someday. The Tesauros grew vegetables for market on their Grassroots Farm in Riner before relocating to their current farm in Floyd. 4. Superintendent Kevin Harris and Barry Hollandsworth, FCHS assistant principal of Career and Technical Education, being interviewed by Roanoke Times reporters. 5. Horse plowing in action with Jason Rutledge (seated) and his son Jagger. A story on Rutledge, the Biological Woodsman Weekend (currently in progress in Floyd) and Wendell Berry’s visit to Floyd in conjunction with it is HERE. 6. Roanoke Times reporter Michael Sluss talks with Dwight Shelor, trustee of the Shelor Family Foundation. Watch a video of the event below.
November 20th, 2013 9:21 am
This seems to be a whole movement these days. I hope that it meets with success!
November 21st, 2013 12:17 am
[…] 10. Breaking ground by horse power on the high school’s new farm school was covered by the Roanoke Times and picked up by the Associated Press and the Washington Post. I went to the event to get pictures of one of the horse loggers for a story I was doing and ended up covering it too HERE. […]
November 21st, 2013 2:45 pm
I love that more schools and communities are putting in gardens.
November 25th, 2013 11:46 pm
My goodness you live in an absolutely wonderful place. This was fascinating.