McCORMICK — Cows compose the greeting committee at the Governor’s School for Agriculture, flocking to the fence just past the entrance to watch visitors drive past.

Established in 1797 as a farming school for poor and orphaned children, the campus known for centuries as John de la Howe has changed missions several times. The latest turned it into the nation’s only residential public high school providing an agricultural education.

Pastures of horses, sheep and cows dot the 1,310-acre property tucked off a rural road in McCormick County inside a national forest.

The campus’ dozen residential halls are full, and for the first time since the new mission began, officials are having to turn away prospective students because of a lack of space, said Tim Keown, the school’s president.

Two more halls sit mostly empty as they await decorations from the school’s alumni committee and, next year, a new batch of students to fill them.

After a rocky start, including findings of ethical and financial mismanagement during the school’s first year after the change, things are looking up, Keown said.

Last year, the school regained the accreditation it lost in 2016. And for the first time in 25 years, auditors last year found no problems, a rare accomplishment for a state agency, he said.

Driving through the expansive campus, where classrooms abut greenhouses and open pastures, Keown described a vision for the school’s future, including continuing to expand its capacity and offering more classes to cover the full spectrum of agriculture.

His ideas have gotten support from the House of Representatives’ budget writers.

That chamber’s state spending plan for 2025-26, , includes $2 million for continuing renovations and $4 million for a new meat processing plant.

“We don’t expect (students) to all go back and be full-time farmers,” Keown said. “But there are hundreds of thousands of jobs across South Carolina that need young people to enter those jobs.”

Becoming a school for agriculture

The mission adopted in 2020 is a return to the school’s roots.

Dr. John de la Howe, a French doctor who immigrated to Charleston in 1764, that he wanted the farm he had purchased to be an agricultural seminary for “12 poor boys and 12 poor girls,” giving preference to orphans, Keown said.

For years, that was what the school was.

During World War I, John de la Howe became a state agency and a home for orphaned children, which it remained until the 1980s. Then, as orphanages waned in use, its purpose adjusted again to become a public residential school for sixth- through 10-graders with serious behavior problems.

That, too, fell out of favor over the years, as more counties established programs that kept troubled teens closer to home.

Attendance dropped, and costs per students skyrocketed.

In 2003, then-Gov. Mark Sanford recommended, without success, closing the school and sending its students to a military-like public school in West Columbia for at-risk teens. In 2014, Gov. Nikki Haley recommended putting the Department of Juvenile Justice in charge.

, with the school’s accreditation on probation, House budget writers recommended temporarily transferring oversight to Clemson University.

Weeks later, the the school’s accreditation. Deficiencies cited by inspectors included classes taught by uncertified teachers, the school not meeting the needs of students with disabilities, and the lack of online access.

That forced the Legislature to make a decision.

Legislators eventually settled on creating a third residential high school offering a specific education. The agriculture school joined existing governor’s schools for the arts and for science and math.

The year the school was supposed to open its doors to its first new class of students, the COVID-19 pandemic began. Distancing restrictions meant students could no longer share rooms, so the school halved its capacity and began its first year with 33 students.

The next year, the school’s population doubled.

At the start of the 2024 school year, 81 students were enrolled, and another 81 had graduated. Once renovations in three dorms are complete, the capacity will increase to 124, plus day students, Keown said.

“It’s been like putting together a huge puzzle with many missing pieces over the last couple of years,” Keown said. “But we’re finally finding all those pieces, and it’s all making more sense.”

The new mission

Blake Arias knew he wanted to study plants. Other than that, he had little interest in agriculture when he applied for the governor’s school.

“If you looked at my application, it was very obvious that I didn’t have a background and that I didn’t know much,” Arias said.

When he first arrived at the school nearly three hours from his home in Summerton, he wasn’t particularly interested in handling animals. And he really, really didn’t want to learn to weld.

Three years later, Arias, who graduates this spring, still focuses primarily on plants.

However, he also spends hours every day after class helping a rabbit, Chunky, lose some weight before he takes her to shows. He’s working on earning a beekeeping certification. And he even learned how to weld.

“Am I the best welder? Absolutely not,” Arias said. “But I really enjoyed it, and it taught me something new because they gave me the opportunity.”

Arias is part of about half of the school’s population that comes in with little background in agriculture, Keown said. Applicants must have . The goal is to take all kinds of students, whether they grew up on a farm or in a city and show them all sorts of opportunities in agriculture.

That’s not limited to farming.

The school offers four designated pathways: agricultural mechanics, horticulture, plant and animal systems, and environmental and natural resources. Students choose a focus, but they’re introduced to a sampler platter of what’s out there, Keown said.

“It really shows you all the possibilities that there are in each field,” said Emily White, a senior from McCormick.

Day to day

The days typically begin long before students report to the cafeteria at 7:45 a.m.

Like on any farm, horses, pigs and rabbits need feeding and cleaning, and plants need tending.

Students take a blend of core classes, such as English, math and social studies, and classes focused on agriculture, Keown said.

Even the core classes, which are all honors-level courses, typically use agriculture as a touch point for students, said Lyle Fulmer, a recent graduate.

Math problems, for instance, might use real-life examples of balancing a budget on a farm. For students interested in agriculture, that adds excitement to what might usually be their hum-drum classes, he said.

“Even if it was frustrating and I didn’t know how to solve the problem, I would work through it and I would know that this was something that I very well could be doing someday,” said Fulmer, who is now a freshman at Clemson University.

Once classes are over, students have the rest of the afternoon to do as they please.

White said she typically goes to the pig barn to clean, feed and work with Hank the Tank, a pig she’s planning to show.

Other students might practice rodeo riding or clay shooting, two of the sports the school offers. Some gather at the saw mill to help process trees salvaged when Tropical Storm Helene swept through campus last September.

By 6:15 p.m., students are expected to return to their residence halls or other communal areas for an hour of study time. Like college students, they have the run of their residence halls under the watchful eye of a residential advisor.

Along with accumulating credits to get ahead in college courses, the freedom Fulmer had as a high school student helped prepare him for living in the dorms and all the challenges that accompany that. He already knew how to keep his space tidy and handle disagreements with roommates, which many incoming freshmen don’t, he said.

“It really did prepare me a lot for college,” Fulmer said.

What the future holds

Standing on the front lawn of the president’s mansion, glimpses of the dining hall visible across an expansive open lawn, Keown described his vision of the school’s future.

In the next couple of years, the school will start offering classes in culinary arts and hospitality management, which will help students who want to go into the growing industry of agritourism that creates attractions out of farms.

“Our ag kids learn to grow (the food), our culinary students prepare it, our tourism hospitality students manage the banquets,” Keown said of his vision.

Also in the near future is the meat processing plant, which Keown hopes to have finished in the next three years. That will give students skills to land high-paying jobs straight out of high school and fill a gap in the agricultural industry, Keown said.

A decade from now, Keown hopes to see 300 students roaming the grounds. He also wants them to grow about half of what they eat, compared with 20% now.

In Keown’s mind, the school presents a bright spot for the future of agriculture. While the number of farmers under the age of 35 has grown slightly in recent years, the average age of farmers is 58, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture.

Photos of recent alumni hung from flagpoles on campus. Driving under them, Keown named each graduate and where they went to school. Many go to Clemson, though some went to schools in other states.

Most are still pursuing degrees in agriculture.

“They are making us really proud,” Keown said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.

At Salish Coast Elementary School in Port Townsend, a group of fifth grade students is asked a math question: If a farmer wants to plant four seeds per foot in two 40-foot rows, how many seeds will the farmer need?

It’s the kind of math problem teachers often ask fifth graders. At Salish Coast, though, it’s not theoretical: “Farmer Neil” asks the question, and the students plant the seeds.

“If you know you helped make the food, it always tastes better,” says 11-year-old Gus Griffin, who’s helping plant 320 bean seeds in one of Salish Coast’s three gardens. (That’s the answer to the math question, by the way.)

Salish Coast’s gardens are part of Port Townsend School District’s farm-to-school program, and “Farmer Neil” is what the kids call the school’s garden production manager, Neil Howe. Howe tries to teach kids math, science and research skills through gardening. He also tries to foster their curiosity.

“Every time I find a grub out there, I try to link it back to science. ‘What is this? Does anybody know?’ I want them to pass it around. I want them to want to know what that is,” Howe said.

°Â˛š˛őłóžą˛Ô˛ľłŮ´Ç˛Ô’s , and since then, farm-to-school has exploded in popularity. Last fall, the Washington State Department of Agriculture received over $8 million in farm-to-school funding requests from schools, more than twice the amount of funds available.

The state expanded the program in 2021 using federal COVID-19 funds. Based on how the budget is written, the agriculture department expects that as federal funds run out, legislators will backfill the money with state dollars.

“The kids will eat [school meals] more when they own their own food,” said Shannon Gray, the Port Townsend district’s food services director.

“I’ll put the picture of the garden above anything that’s from the garden,” Gray said about the school’s cafeteria meals. “If they’re not eating it, [I’ll realize] ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot to put the picture up.’”

The rise of farm-to-school

At least half of °Â˛š˛őłóžą˛Ô˛ľłŮ´Ç˛Ô’s districts are participating in some type of farm-to-school food program, estimates Annette Slonim, WSDA’s farm-to-school lead.

A 2019 of schools from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found about 68% of Washington respondents were farm-to-school participants, representing over 1,300 of the state’s schools, which number around 3,000 total.

Over half of the survey’s Washington respondents had been participating in farm-to-school programs for less than three years.

This year, USDA nutrition guidelines are expected to limit added sugar in school meals for the first time. But with farm-to-school, it can be easier to control sugar, sodium and other nutritional content.

Slonim said the pandemic also showed districts that local businesses are less susceptible to disruptions in the global food supply chain.

“[The pandemic] made visible how fragile some parts of the food supply chain are,” Slonim said.

Small businesses and communities benefit, too: Port Townsend, for example, purchased over 1,000 pounds of pork over the last two school years from , a local farm owned by Charlotte Frederickson and her husband, Martin Frederickson. The pigs at One Straw Ranch also eat local feed and spend most of their time outside, unlike most factory farm pigs.

“We feel that having a connection to your food is important environmentally, socially, ethically — across the board,” Charlotte Frederickson said. “To be able to nurture that in the next generation of consumers who will soon be choosing where to buy their food…it makes us feel really good.”

Port Townsend’s program continues to expand. Howe and the students grew about 4,000 pounds of produce last year. This year, he’s hoping for 6,000 pounds — and the kids seem more than happy to help.

“It’s pretty groovy,” said Griffin, the 11-year-old student, looking at the garden.

Nutritional and educational benefits

Cassandra Hayes, nutrition services director at Colville School District, said she’s been surprised with how little some kids know about where their food comes from.

When the district first implemented farm-to-school, Hayes did a carrot showcase, featuring Washington carrots that still had the tops on them. Some of the kids told her they thought carrots came like peeled baby carrots.

Colville School District’s farm-to-school program has only been going on for two years. Two high school sweethearts who graduated from the district now produce the beef for schools there.

Hayes said there’s some trial and error that goes into figuring out what the kids will eat. For example, the high school students help make the ranch dressing from scratch at Colville, and some kids love it — but others “are like, I want my Hidden Valley back,” Hayes said.

But she said it’s worth it and the kids often like the local food better. Last year, Colville bought out its local carrot producer and had to return to its old producer, and the kids came up to Hayes to complain.

“They’re like, ‘What is this?’” Hayes said. “And they held up a carrot. I’m like, ‘That’s a carrot,’ and they’re like, ‘No, this is not those carrots that you gave us…they’re not as sweet.’”

“I’m like, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you, you guys ate them all,’” Hayes said. “And they’re like, ‘Well, tell them to go make some more!’”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on and .