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Wetumpka is first stop on tour

By Peggy Blackburn
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Wetumpka High School’s agriscience department was in the spotlight this week when the Alabama Department of Education’s “promising practices” tour made the school its first stop on the three-day excursion.

Superintendents, principals, teachers and career and technical administrators were among the busload of attendees, along with Sherry Key, director of career and technical education at the state Department of Education.

The visit to WHS highlighted three of the school’s five agriculture-related programs -- floral design and interiorscaping, aquaculture and horticulture.

“We also teach agriscience and agriconstruction,” said Joe Brown, one of the school’s two ag teachers.

The tour at Wetumpka began in a floral design class. Brown talked about what students accomplish during the course.

“We make one-, two- and three-bloom bud vases, one- and two-bloom corsages, a live arrangement in a pumpkin, Christmas wreaths and silk arrangements,” he said. “A number of our students have gone on to work at florists and in floral departments, and some have attended Auburn majoring in horticulture. We have four there right now.

“It is a fairly expensive class, for example we’ve used $296 in supplies during the past two weeks,” he said. “Students pay a $30 fee to take the class, so that helps some.”

While a limited number of students pursue careers in the field, Brown pointed out that skills such as flower arrangement and learning to tie bows add to people’s quality of life for many years.

Michael Hutto, also an agriscience instructor at WHS, led a tour of the department’s horticulture and aquaculture programs.

“We’re one of very few high schools in the state that have an aquaculture program,” Hutto said. “We have five ponds here -- two stocked with catfish, two with bream and bass and one with crawfish. I think we’re the only school in the state with a crawfish pond.”

Hutto explained that the course teaches students how to raise fish and crawfish, as well as manage ponds. He noted that since health department regulations don’t allow the classes to sell the fish, the ponds are seined (fish removed) at the end of each school year and the harvest becomes a gigantic fish fry.

The group also visited the school’s greenhouse.

“We pretty much teach horticulture in the spring, but in the fall we do have a variety of pansies, violas and flowering cabbage and begin hanging baskets. We also work on the greenhouse,” said Hutto. “In the spring, we will have some of the most popular bedding plants and veggies.”

Wanda McCall, Selma High School principal, said she was impressed.

“I think they really have a lot of great things going on here,” she said. “I’m getting some good ideas.

“ I think the tour is going to be really helpful,” McCall added. “I want to start some programs at my school, and this is a way to see things that I can take back there and adapt.”

Sherry Key, director of career and technical education at state department of education, accompanied the tour group.

“They have done so well here,” she said. “It’s a good example of what agriscience should be.”

Carl Thomas, Elmore County Technical Center principal and supervisor of all career tech programs in the local school system, said instructors throughout the county work hard to ensure that the courses are outstanding.

“I could take you to any of our schools right now, without any preparation, and you would see similar successful programs,” he told tour members. “Identical classes aren’t offered at every school, but the quality is the same.”

After leaving Wetumpka, the tour also visited Wenonah’s culinary arts program, Hoover’s business/marketing finance academy, a health science partnership at Snead State Community College in Arab, the jobs for Alabama graduates program and culinary arts lab at the Huntsville Center for Technology and the tech ed pre-engineering program at Florence High.

This is the fourth annual tour, and this year’s event focused on programs in the northern part of Alabama.

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