Leadership Down on the Farm
LOGANTON – The Bucktail Youth Leadership Program kicked off the 2014 school year with a trip to Loganton in October. This year’s participants include: Hannah Bowes, Emalea Mills, Hailey Risley, Alanna Tripp, Renee Werts, and Ebonee Spriggs.
The students toured the Schrack Farm to observe the self-sustained, environmentally-friendly, and technologically-advanced twelfth-generation dairy operation with Farm Manager, Jim Harbach. The manure digester which provides electricity and other environmental benefits to the farm was fascinating to the students. The no-till farming practices and technology-driven milking processes helped the students learn that dairy farms provide not only milk to our communities, but also cheese and other dairy by-products.
To contrast the modern facility, Lisa Blazure of the Conservation District, facilitated a visit to an Amish farm and an Amish buggy shop to observe more traditional methods of farming and working, as well as explaining the conservation efforts farms are undertaking in Sugar Valley. They were able to look at tobacco leaves drying, which serves as a cash crop for the farms. They also learned about the history of the beginnings of Loganton, and the geological make-up of Sugar Valley.
The remainder of the day the students participated in leadership building and public speaking activities.
The students remarked that this session provided all of the components that they would have received if they were at school: history, physical exercise, economics, ecology, geology, and communication. Each session throughout the nine-month program includes a focus on leadership building, communication, and other life skills activities, and a public speaking component is assigned each time.
The Bucktail Youth Leadership Program is coordinated by Bobbie Jo Simcox and Gwen Bechdel as an activity club at Bucktail High School. The Clinton County Community Foundation and Leadership Clinton County are generous supporters of the activities of the Program.
