Below is the story from the magazine.
Very impressive.
Josey Miller: The Ag Teacher
Age: 33
Location: Lenoir City in East Tennessee
Josey
Miller often tells her students at Lenoir City High School:
“Agriculture is everywhere. Agriculture is life.”
She should
know. Caring for livestock on the family farm – she now owns 6 acres
of it – Miller enjoyed her high school summers as a 4-H camp
volunteer leader so much that she kept doing it during her college
internships in Tennessee and Montana. Not surprisingly, her first
job was as a 4-H program assistant in Loudon County.
“And that
threw me headlong into classrooms with fourth through eighth grade
(students),” Miller says.
After that,
she became an Extension agent in Rhea County and an agriculture
teacher and advisor for the Lenoir City FFA Chapter, the national
organization formerly known as Future Farmers of America.
She’d almost
finished her master’s degree in ag leadership in 2014 when her
former agriculture teacher called to tell her a position had opened
up at Lenoir City High School.
“I really want
to be able to make a difference in the kids’ lives all the time,”
Miller says.
She now
teaches horticulture, aquaculture and ag mechanics, which includes
welding, woodworking and plumbing, and prefers to show students how
to find their own information rather than answer their questions
outright. It helps she’s a farmer herself who, incidentally, serves
as a good role model by donating produce to food banks, a local
domestic violence shelter and her neighbors.
The best part
of the job is watching the teens mature, she notes.
“You see this
little freshman who is scared to death of reciting the FFA creed,”
she says.
“And then you
see them up there on the stage as the valedictorian giving a speech
to hundreds of people with no problem at all. It’s really neat to
know you have been a huge part of that change.”