EHS Agriscience opens students eyes up to the Agriculture industry

Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series focusing on the Career Tech programs offered by Enterprise High School.

Enterprise High School’s Agriscience Program offers career tech students the opportunity to see the possibilities that the largest employer in the nation offers.

“Agriculture is the largest employer in the nation, not just farming, and that’s what I’m trying to get the kids to recognize,” EHS Agriscience teacher Keith Hocutt said. “Farming is just one part of it. If they are interested in medicine they can go into veterinary medicine or if they are interested in nursing they can go into things like being a vet tech.

“Things like foresters, forestry consultants, greenhouse management, production managements, even advertisement and media and there are even lawyers that work primarily in agriculture and farming. Everything that is in the secular world, we have in the agriculture side.”

At EHS, agriscience includes courses available in forestry, horticulture, greenhouse management and animal science. At most schools in the surrounding area agriscience covers all of those subjects in just one class, along with teaching the basics of welding, construction, woodworking and masonry. EHS, on the other hand, has courses on those individual subjects, as well.

EHS agrisience programs offer students the ability to earn certifications in beef quality assurance for students that want to get into raising cattle. Students can also receive certifications in forestry and horticulture science along with certification from the National Center for Construction and Research.

Hocutt said that with agriscience he usually gets the same number of students every semester that genuinely want to sign up for the class and others that were simply placed in the class. His goal, though, is to open their eyes to the possibilities that agriculture offers.

“My objective is to open their eyes to the world of agriculture, not just farming, and let them see the big picture,” Hocutt said. “Once they see that it’s not just farming, the light bulbs go off and they see, ‘Oh I could do that’ or “oh, I can do that, too.’ There are a lot of choices for electives but (agriscience) gives them a lot of good opportunities.”