Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell made a stop Friday at South Heights Elementary School to take a look at a project a group of fifth-grade boys have been working on for weeks.
The group of ten students developed a three-phase project that involved or will involve assistance from the construction, agriculture and culinary arts programs at the Henderson County High School Career and Technical Education unit, said Dr. Courtney Ferguson.
The project is a part of the Blazer Craftworks Academy, an initiative the school implemented in January to get students more hands-on experience with subjects and activities they may not have much background with, said Ferguson, who runs the academy with family resource center specialist Amanda Curlin.
Ferguson said other pursuits of the program, of which 40 students take part, will include knitting, dancing and a gentlemen’s club.
In the first phase of the agriculture project, students worked with the HCHS CTE construction program to design and build planting boxes.
In the second phase, the boys planted tomatoes, peppers, parsley and marigolds, said Ferguson.
In the third phase, they made a homemade salsa from scratch, Ferguson said. In the coming weeks, the boys will visit both local restaurant Hometown Roots to work with chefs there and the HCHS CTE culinary program to work with students there.
Shell’s visit came as a part of Agricultural Education Week in Kentucky. He had been scheduled to make the visit with Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman and Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher. Coleman and Fletcher had scheduling conflicts. According to Megan Mortis, Henderson County Schools’ director of public information, the school was chosen for a visit because the department of agriculture “is impressed with the partnerships that South Heights has fostered to teach food production in a more urban setting.”
The students who worked on the food project are Ruatu Bellu, Diego Chavez, Drayvin O’Neal, Irmael Nelson, Jaxson Roark, Ka’Dryian Payne, Kace Howard, Kyler Johnson, Manuel G. Marcos and Terrance Thompson.
At the end of the presentation, Shell told the group just how important locally grown food is to a person’s health and warned them of the effects of processed foods.
Shell gave the students seeds for giant pumpkins and invited them to try to grow one for the Kentucky State Fair in August. He also invited them to the fair so that they could get a look at all the different aspects of agriculture in the state.
Before the SHS visit, Shell also stopped at Henderson County High School, where he spoke with the school’s FFA chapter.