UMO AgFest attracts nearly 2,500 to celebrate agriculture and showcase the university’s offerings

For several hours Thursday afternoon, March 30, Mount Olive’s population increased by more than 50% as about 2,500 FFA students, their advisors, vendors and volunteers crowded onto the University of Mount Olive’s campus for the university’s eighth annual AgFest.

The crowd could have been even larger, but people had to be turned away, said Dr. Sandy Maddox, dean of the university’s School of Agriculture and Biological Sciences.

The purpose of AgFest is to introduce FFA members and advisors to what the university has to offer academically and to what the agriculture industry has to offer in regards to career opportunities, Maddox said.

Students and their advisors began arriving for registration at 11 a.m. They were not limited to eastern North Carolina, coming from across the state including from Randolph, Montgomery, Guilford, Avery, Cabarrus and Anson counties in central and western N.C.

They were greeted by more than 90 educational booths representing all sectors of agriculture and more including food, lambs, horses, archery, fair-like booths, tree climbing demonstrations, tractors, drones, horses, bees and rockets.

The outdoor fair featured a variety of fun activities including a mechanical bull, inflatables and games.

The day concluded with a 4 p.m. concert by country music artist Drake White.

“It is our largest ever,” Maddox added. “I think it is a unique atmosphere for them. We have it as sort of a fair atmosphere. We have over 90 different vendors here who are engaged in anything from agricultural businesses. We have Duke Energy here. We’ve got the Grange and many of our associations that are involved in agriculture. It is just a good mix of education and entertainment.

“We had to turn people away. Unfortunately, we felt like we couldn’t go much further with it with 1,900 (FFA students) and then you have 200 advisors. Then we have over 120 vendors and then our volunteers about 120 strong. We are at well over 2,000 people.”

It certainly doubles the population on the campus, she said.

The vast majority are FFA students so they know what agriculture is about, Maddox said.

All of the vendors are very interactive and are really engaged with the students, she said.

“It kind of depends what their (student’s) interest is,” Maddox explained. “If their interest is environmental and natural resources, we have wildlife — all of those things for them to look at. If they are interested in art, we have our fine arts showing ceramics and sidewalk chalk. We have our nursing program here doing CPR training.

“Health services is here taking vital signs. It is an entire campus community that has come together to do that — not just ag. Ag is kind of the cornerstone, but all of our departments are involved and that is what makes it so great for the university. That’s what is great. Not all of these kids care about ag. They have diverse interests and that is important to us, too.”

The the event’s popularity speaks to UMO’s expanding role not only in eastern North Carolina, but in the state, Maddox said.

“We have them from all over the state,” she said. “I mean for us we are exposing them to kind of the college feel — how it feels to be on a college campus. Secondly for us, we are hoping that they will think about coming to Mount Olive.

“It is very rare that you get 2,000 kids or 2,500 people on a campus and you don’t have a football team or something. This is our answer to that and hopefully it is a good recruitment tool for our entire university.”

Brooke Gray, a FFA student at Havelock High School, eased into a simulation tractor seat that looked more suited for the cockpit of a jet than a tractor. It had a control stick instead of a steering wheel, a LED monitor, GPS and a row of switches with colored lights.

It was her first time attending AgFest.

“I think it is awesome,” she said. “It is very interactive. There is a lot of learning going on, a lot of great food and people here.”

Gray said sitting in the seat had really expanded how she thought about farm equipment.

“It is awesome to see how everything is evolving,” she added.

Gray said her family had owned a farm that had chickens and donkeys and that grew a lot of wheat, but that she had been too little to drive a tractor.

“However, they are going to teach me soon because my parents are planning to own a farm,” she said.

Josh Jennings of the family-owned B&S Enterprises with locations in Kinston, Wilson, Elizabeth City and Sunbury, explained the controls to Gray

The seat was a simulator for the cab of the Case IH AFS Connect tractor, one of two the company had on display.

The company has participated before in AgFest, he said.

“We actually do at lot with the (UMO student) research farm at Mount Olive, helping them with their equipment, their GPS needs,” Jennings said. “I think it (AgFest) is wonderful. I have seen it grow from way less to what it is now.”

The main thing is that there are many kids who are interested in agriculture, that there are a bunch of avenues and they don’t know which way they are going to go, he added.

They have not been able to experience physically being in a tractor on the farm and they want to know what it is like, he added.

“This is an opportunity for hands-on experience and an appreciation for what we have, the technology that is available,” Jennings explained. “Eventually, this is the stuff that feeds us.”

Shelley Armor took time to take selfies with horses from the Wilson County Mounted Search Team.

“I am an animal person so I find all of the animals,” said Armor, FFA advisor at D.H. Conley High School in Greenville.

Armor has worked at the school for six years, but has been an agriculture teacher for 18 years.

“We have been coming to AgFest since it started,” Armor said. “I brought 30 students today. I think it is a great opportunity for them to see a college campus. It is a smaller college.

“It is one with a very strong ag program, and I love every year how this keeps building and there are more and more activities for them; more businesses related to agriculture that they don’t always realize are agriculture related.”

It is also just a beautiful day to get outside and get the students off their campus and onto another one, she said.

And the students have a blast, she added.

Armor said that every year that students begin to ask when Ag Fest is and can they sign up for it even though they were in her class back in the fall.

“So as soon as I find out the date, the students find out and we mark it on our calendars,” Armor said. “But I think the cool things one of my students today already came up and said, ‘I didn’t realize there were so many uses for soybeans.’

“So, it is constant learning which is great.”