Bradford, Tennessee #10

Photos and story by Katijane Shoffner

This month, we visited with the Bradford FFA chapter and talked to their advisor along with several students and officers about the chapter’s big projects as well as their individual projects. They placed 10th at the West TN awards banquet. Bradford FFA is the largest organization at their high school. They currently have 164 members. Not bad with a total school population just under 250! 

They are a one-teacher program and offer Agriscience, Small Animal Science, Large Animal Science, and Veterinary Science. Their latest big project has been the opening of a barn. Currently, they have 8 head of cattle and 2 goats. They have polled Herefords, an Angus heifer, Belted Galloways, and a Black Baldy. They purchased the barn from Larry Patterson and had their ribbon cutting last October. It was a long process that started before COVID. The original idea came from Mark Hampton, a historic buff who wanted to make sure the barn was preserved.  Gary Diviny also had a hand in the purchase. The barn is off-premise and gives the students more ownership as well as hands-on practice. “There was a lot of work put into this barn by students and community alike,” Kyle Gehring, Bradford Ag Instructor told us, “but we wanted to make sure we maintained the history as well. BoPat Farms use to run cattle through here but they outgrew it and moved past that barn putting the focus on new buildings.” Chuckling, he added, “they knew what they were doing when they built this.”  The barn is old, but was built well, with good bones. The FFA students also plan to start showing at the Gibson Co. Fair and plans are underway to breed their heifer to a BoPat bull, which allows the calf to be sold at the BoPat sale.

We were able to talk to several of their Chapter officers and discuss what FFA has done for them:

Carley Pruett is the granddaughter of Larry Patterson, founder of BoPat Farms. She told us about how her grandpa “loves going by the barn and getting to see the new things out there” and he always asks her about it. Carley said the barn was not used much in the last decade, and its nice to see cattle back down there again. She was selected to go to Governor’s School for Ag this summer, and plans on helping her family farm in the future.

Abbey Beth Dunn owns a Belted Galloway bull. She did not grow up with cattle. She decided she wanted to be a part of FFA during her freshmen year and when the barn was purchased she realized she wanted to eventually own a farm and breed cattle. “I went to Rolla, MO to purchase my own bull.  I’m going to breed ‘Oreo Cows’[affectionate name for Belted Galloways] when I have my own farm!” She is planning on going to college for Agriculture Education and would love to come back to this program and teach one day.

Emily Warren didn’t come from an agricultural background either. She started with her SAE and purchased Pygmy goats. Emily said that it was a huge learning curve because she didn’t know what she was doing. She now keeps them on her own property. Emily is planning to attend Murray State, majoring in Agriculture law. Without the last 4 years she probably wouldn’t have done anything in the Ag field but now she knows she wants to be involved with ag for the rest of her life. Emily had always been interested in criminal justice but once she figured out ag law was a thing she was all for it, and her plans were set.

Zoe Williams loves to be around animals. Her grandpa and uncle have cattle, goats, chickens, ducks, dogs, and cats. She started helping her uncle take care of the cattle and realized she wanted to keep helping. “I can’t wait to come back and be even more of a part of our farm!” Zoe wants to eventually start her own herd. 

Andrea Latham isn’t directly in the Agriculture path with her SAE - career readiness, but wants to show that there’s more to FFA than just working with animals. She makes hair wraps to earn money for her class and as an entrepreneur, starting with a booth at the Doodle Soup Festival.  She has learned social skills during her tenure with FFA. She plans to go to cosmetology school upon graduation. 

Chloe Goss expressed to us that “my main purpose is to make sure people know everyone has a place in Ag.” She talked to us about how she was inspired at this past year’s national convention with the keynote speaker Courtney DeHoff. Chloe then went on to tell us that she posted a picture on Instagram with a quote from Courtney “the only person that has to believe in you is you” and Courtney actually commented on it. Chloe loves Ag, but she grew up competing in pageants as well as tap dancing and she is now a young entrepreneur with Queen B's Beads.

Rebecca Walter is the chapter president. Her biggest thing with FFA has been the leadership roles it has provided. When she first started, her social skills were not the best but as she grew in FFA so did her social skills. Leadership rolls like being a POA chair did just this. And that’s just one example of how to get involved and grow your skills. Rebecca isn’t planning on going into an agriculture job but she is planning on going into communications in the future. 

In the next 5 years, they would like to have a second Ag teacher so that they can offer a wider range of classes and more avenues into Agriculture. They would like to increase their acreage to be able to raise more cattle, as well as partner with or open their own feeder and processing plant facility to the public. This would give the students the chance to understand the benefits of raising livestock and an entry into meat science. Another goal is to have more than two students showing cattle. Currently, they have the largest CTE program in Gibson, Co. Bradford creates very large goals and though they might take them years to fulfill, they set goals high and attempt to grow to meet them. They’ve done a great job thus far.  “We believe education is important, but we also want to make it fun.  Bradford is blessed to have such hard-working students, and to have parents and community leaders who see the value of FFA as it pertains to the future.” Gehring finished.  Congratulations to #10, Bradford FFA!