As they prepare to take a swing at their own futures beyond high school, students at the Governor’s School for Agriculture recently stepped up to the plate to meet and chat informally with some “major league” players in the local business community.

The school hosted its first “Beyond An Aggie” Career Fair on Thursday, Sept. 15 at SRP Park in North Augusta, the stadium home of the Augusta GreenJackets minor league baseball team. Almost the entire student body boarded buses and trekked to the stadium’s WOW! Club for an afternoon meet-and-greet with potential future employers.

"We were already planning on coming up here for the College Night," said Greg Thompson, principal at the Governor’s School for Agriculture. "So, we said, why don’t we make it a full day and make it a career fair as well?"

The school-sponsored career fair was followed by a visit to the James Brown Arena in downtown Augusta for the annual CSRA College Night. There, college-bound Aggies could interact with recruiters for more than 90 colleges and universities, who shared details on higher education options.

"The goal is to produce some of the best agriculture kids in the Southeast, even in the nation," said Grayson McCullough, the school’s student activities coordinator, who organized the career fair. "First, they’ve got to see the goal and what the product is – and these people who came to speak to our kids, they are the product. And so these kids are getting to see the end game, and they’re getting some behind-the-scenes stories about how these people actually got into their fields."

Among the local industry leaders who visited the Aggies at the ballpark was Ken Boyd, a park ranger serving with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at nearby J. Strom Thurmond Dam and Lake in Clarks Hill. The 1,310-acre John de la Howe campus is nestled on the banks of Lake Thurmond, surrounded by 71,100 acres of water and 1,200 miles of shoreline managed by the Corps of Engineers.

"A lot of them are kind of surprised about the size of facility that they live on and how much land base is actually managed there," Mr. Boyd said. "They seemed kind of excited about that part of it, and I think some of them are interested in the industry that I work in, which is primarily forestry and fish and wildlife-oriented industry, natural resource management."

Students also were able to meet and chat with Aiken native Jamal Reynolds, a consensus All-American defensive end at Florida State University who later spent three years with the National Football League’s Green Bay Packers before a career-ending injury. He encouraged the students to chase their dreams even if discouraged by adversity or naysayers.

Mr. Reynolds was impressed with the educational opportunities offered at the Governor’s School for Agriculture. "I grow gardens. I fish. I hunt, and I do all that stuff," he said. "So, learning that there was a school just for that kind of stuff, I’m like, man, I wish they’d had something like that when I was coming through."

Among the other industries represented, a recruiter from South Carolina State University also attended the career fair to encourage students to consider careers in teaching. Last year, the Governor’s School for Agriculture and S.C. State’s 1890 Extension Service signed a partnership agreement in an effort to grow future leaders in South Carolina’s flourishing ag industry.

For more information on enrollment at the South Carolina Governor’s School for Agriculture and the four agricultural pathways offered, visit the school website at www.delahowe.sc.gov.

Here is some video from this event: https://youtu.be/uuW7FLX9pTU