Local News - August 2003

Farm family honored

Students recognized at annual banquet

By SARAH GRANO, LTN Staff Writer

The  Lincoln County Farm Family of the Year was honored Thursday at the Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District Annual Banquet.

Local students were also honored for their academic and extra curricular achievements involving soil and water conservation.

Charles and Alda Yount were honored as the Conservation Farm Family of the year.

Yount said he was humbled by the award.

“You get to see the handiwork of God out there,” said Charles Yount of farming.

“There’s a lot of disappointment, but lot of enjoyment too. It all comes with farming.”

Yount has been a farmer all of his life. His only time away from the fields was when he was in the service.

Yount’s farm has alfalfa and soybeans. He is also the proud owner of more than 40 head of cattle.

“He’s very conscientious about keeping the soil out of the streams,” said Rick McSwain, a natural resources conservationist.

“When soil washes out of a field anything else that’s in the field will go with it, any of the chemicals, pesticides, anything like that.”

Area students were also honored for their soil and water conservation efforts.

West Lincoln Middle School sixth grader Whitney Ellis read her essay on ground water pollution.

“I was nervous,” Ellis said. “My legs were shaking and everything.”

Ellis’ competed in the essay competition with more than 700 other sixth graders.

Robbie Dedmon, a junior at West Lincoln High, was also honored for being Lincoln’s Resource Conservation Workshop Student.

Dedmon represented Lincoln County in a five day workshop held in June at N.C. State University.

Patti Dellinger, the administrative assistant and education reporter for the Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation Board, read to the crowd a letter that Dedmon wrote after his trip.

“I learned more in one week than I’ve learned all year at school,” Dedmon wrote. “This is a week that I will always remember.”

Three students from East Lincoln High School who competed in the Envirothon were also recognized.

The “Scrappy Mustangs” are the first team in the county to compete in the event in which students test their knowledge of soils, forestry, wildlife, aquatics and current environmental issues.

Their advisor, Denise Coulter, thought up their name because the team only had three members, as opposed to five.

The students also looked more like middle school students than high school students, she said.

“We were a little team both in stature and numbers, but people who knew me said there’s nothing scrappy about them,” Coulter said.

Jim Cummings, the assistant commissioner of the N.C. Department of Agriculture, was the opening speaker at the banquet.

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Staff Writer Sarah Grano can be reached at 704-735-3031 or sgrano@ltnews.com.

Whitney Ellis

Robbie Dedmon

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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