The third full academic year of the South Carolina Governor’s School for Agriculture at John de la Howe has begun, and the Aggie family is continuing to grow in both numbers and excitement.

More than 70 students and their families gathered on our 1,310-acre campus over the weekend of August 6-7 as residential students settled into their cottages. A few more “daytime-only” students joined our resident Aggies on Monday, August 8 for the first official day of classes.

"We’re happy that all our returning students wanted to come back to school and seem to be excited," Greg Thompson, our school principal, said at the end of the first day of school. "We’ve got a lot of new things coming up for these young people, and I’m just a proud principal."

As the new school year began, Mr. Thompson announced a new theme for the 2022-2023 academic year: "Huddle Up!" It is a theme that stresses the value of teamwork.

"'Huddle Up!' actually means that we’re all in the huddle together, and we have one goal," he said. "In order for us to reach our goal, we all have to be in the huddle and work together."

This year for the first time, returning Aggies will serve as part of a mentor program for incoming students to help them acclimate to the unique way of life here at the Governor’s School for Agriculture. "I think they will provide a lot of good guidance to our new students," Mr. Thompson said.

Our agency president Timothy Keown echoed Mr. Thompson’s excitement about the growth of the student population, which has more than doubled from the first year of the Governor’s School for Agriculture initiative in 2020. This year, in addition to homegrown Aggies from across South Carolina, the enrollment includes several from Georgia, North Carolina and Florida. This year for the first time, the Governor's School welcomes students from South Carolina's Pee Dee region.

"The good news is traveling fast about this amazing school, and we are thankful," Mr. Keown said.

Next spring, the school’s second graduating class – the Class of 2023 – will include 27 seniors, which is six more students than the inaugural herd of graduating Aggies.

"I think the kids that just graduated this past spring have set the bar for them," Mr. Thompson said. "I stressed to our returning students about even improving on the product we produced last year. We’re excited about chasing some more scholarship money for these new folks for our upcoming seniors and these new folks coming in."

The Class of 2022 – the first graduating class under the new mission – was awarded more than a half-million dollars in college scholarships. Our school leadership is hoping to improve even on that staggering level of early academic success.

"We have challenged the class of 2023 to earn $550,000, a goal that I believe to be attainable," Mr. Keown said.

Even before the first day of classes began, the Governor’s School for Agriculture was recognizing student success. A small corps of Aggies who represented our school at the South Carolina Jr. Beef Round-Up at Clemson University last weekend were recognized at the year’s first morning roll call.

"We are looking forward to an amazing year with more student accolades than ever before," Mr. Keown said.