As the President of the South Carolina Governor's School for Agriculture at John de la Howe, I am honored to have a role in this unique educational opportunity offered here.  The General Assembly of South Carolina should be highly commended for taking this vision and making it a reality!

We are the ONLY residential high school in the Nation that specializes in the business of Agriculture.  Our sprawling campus consists of 1310 acres of prime timberland, farmland, and is surrounded by beautiful Lake Thurmond.  We are located in rural McCormick County, South Carolina which is the perfect setting to study all areas of agriculture.  In South Carolina, agriculture is our state’s number one industry which creates over 40 billion dollars in revenue statewide. 

Our agricultural education courses are designed to provide hands-on training coupled with a rigorous general education curriculum.  We offer three completer pathways.  Those are Plant and Animal Science, Horticulture, and Environmental and Natural Resources Management. Our faculty and staff take pride in knowing that we are training future leaders for the most ESSENTIAL industry in the world. 

Our students are heavily involved in FFA, 4-H, Livestock Show Team, BASS team, archery, sporting clays, and intramural athletics.  As residential students, we are exposing our students to an early college lifestyle.  They learn life skills on top of their academics which will better have them prepared for college and the real world.

If you have a child who is heavily interested in studying agriculture, this could be a dream come true for them!  Our admissions process is simple and can be found on our website.

GO AGGIES!

Timothy R. Keown, President