When she was a fifth-grade student at the Wellsville-Middletown R-I School District years ago, Taren Justice enjoyed participating in the Stevens Farm Tour, where she got to learn about farming.
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When she was a fifth-grade student at the Wellsville-Middletown R-I School District years ago, Taren Justice enjoyed participating in the Stevens Farm Tour, where she got to learn about farming.
Now that she is an employee of the Montgomery County Soil and Water Conservation District, Justice got a chance to be in charge of the annual event on May 16.
For five hours, fifth-grade students from Montgomery City, Jonesburg and W-M elementary schools and Immaculate Conception School learned about farm safety, fishing, soil health, rocks and fossils, streambank erosion and wildlife. A total of 150 students, administrators, employees and volunteers participated in the event.
“It’s really cool to get to see all of the different schools in the county come together,” Justice said. “Not all of the groups are separated just by the schools, so it’s really nice to see the teachers and the parents and community members work together. It’s really fun getting to plan it and getting contact with all of the schools and seeing what all works for them and getting to be involved in the community.”
The Stevens Farm Tour, which is held at a farm six miles west of Montgomery City off Highway B, started in 1983, when Joe and Marilyn Stevens wanted to give the county students a chance to spend the day on the farm. After it was canceled in 2020 and 2021, the tour returned in 2022.
The tour began at 9:30 a.m. and ended at 2 p.m. and was split into seven different stations – animals, electrical safety, rocks, fishing, soil health tunnel, rain simulator and farm safety.
Caleb Massa, a fifth-grade student at MCE, said he enjoyed his visit. He caught 10 fish and asked numerous questions at the electric presentation.
“I was looking forward to it a lot because I wanted to see the animals,” the 11-year-old Caleb said. “What’s the point of seeing a farm without animals?”
Paige Dameron, a fifth-grade student at W-M Elementary, said her favorite animal was Elvis the Pony.
“He was just soft and he was big,” she said.
The most popular station was the fishing lake. Four Immaculate Conception students – Leyla Beabout, Katie Ford and sisters Milani and Shenell Sorrell – were part of the first group that went fishing.
“I really liked fishing even though I didn’t catch any fish,” Milani Sorrell said.
Justice said fishing was her favorite thing to do when she went to the Stevens Farm Tour in elementary school.
“Just to show you how important fishing is, that’s the only thing I remember from my fifth grade period,” Justice said.
Justice, who graduated from W-M in May 2022, has been working at SWCD for a year. She also works for the National Resources Conservation Service.
“Before this is what I started doing, I wanted to be an elementary teacher,” Justice said. “So it’s just crazy that even though that’s not what ended up happening for me, I still have the opportunity to work with kids with the farm tour and with our poster contest that we do every year.”
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