SHOALS, Ind. – If ever there were a serene school district quietly nestled in a rural landscape, then Shoals Community Schools is a prime example. Located about 20 miles southeast of French Lick, Shoals is a quaint home to 700 students in pre-K through grade 12. Nothing out of the ordinary from this portion of southern Indiana.

All that began to change five years ago when the district hired teacher Ben Kent. Kent brought his degree, experience in construction trades and farming background to the classroom. Since that time, Kent and his students turned an empty field behind the school into a small working farm.

“When we got started, we had chickens and pigs and we were just raising them,” said Kent, who said they since added two cows to their list. “We wanted to take the ag program further and give the kids the experience from birth to finish.”

What was missing, he said, was a barn. 

“I was approached by a local organization that asked what we saw as our future,” Kent said. “I drew up a blueprint for a 40-by-40 barn with a loft and they soon offered us $10,000. We dove right into it. We took that money and started with a concrete pad. Another person came by and wrote a check for more concrete. Another $5,000 was donated by community members. A month later someone offered another $10,000 and it all steamrolled from there. No one promised us any other money.”

The barn was erected in February.

Donations from the community included platinum-level sponsorships from Hoosier Uplands and Martin County Community Foundation to name a few.

Planning, fundraising and construction took place the past two years. To raise money, the students built and sold more than 160 picnic tables and 200 shooting benches. The students made custom furniture, including dining room tables and media stands. With some of the money, they poured new concrete sidewalks at the school and built a walking trail around the campus. The construction class is currently working to convert an old study hall space into a counseling area in the middle school. All this progress that started with the construction of a barn.

“The barn was always a dream and something we knew would set us apart,” Kent said. “We built this for the long term. A lot of kids will benefit from this.”

Completed by students in the ag and construction programs, the barn (made of tulip poplar) marks a major step for the two career pathway programs. Total construction cost for the barn was roughly $60,000.

Kent started out with 45 students between the ag and construction programs at the high school level. Today, the programs have 130 students participating in the high school and elementary schools combined.

“Our school is small and there’s a lot of collaboration with our elementary school students,” Kent said.

Kent, agriculture engineering teacher Megan Hawkins and the students have seen their efforts blossom into a small working farm that now includes three sows (named Charlotte, Sally and Yorkie), chickens, roosters, an apple orchard, pumpkin patch and large garden.

“I relate our program to those of sports, where you try to get everyone into the game and involved,” Kent said.

In addition, having a barn will allow the program to elevate its farm-to-table program, which already sells sausage, meat chicken and turkeys as well as eggs.  

“We also started our own school business because the school couldn’t provide much,” Kent said. “Selling corn hole boards, picnic tables and shooting benches, selling sausage – that was all part of our small business program. All this helps us function to a level where we have plenty of money to buy feed and other things.”

The ag students participate in the complete farm-to-table experience. They study the whole process of chickens and pigs on the farm, from butchering to dressing the meat. The garden next to the school provides them with watermelon, cantaloupe, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes.

“This is the first year we’ve had watermelon, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers from our garden served in our school cafeteria,” Teacher Mimi Hawkins said.

Three years ago, the students built a whole hog smoker. “We built it from scratch utilizing our small welding area,” Kent said. “We gut the pig, skin it, ice it down, dry it, season it, then put it in our smoker for 16 to 18 hours.”

The barn and garden are one-quarter mile from the school. Both rest on four fenced acres.

“We’re active year round,” Hawkins  said. “In the fall local farmers provide us with an acre of corn to hold a fall corn maze. We hold a ‘you-pick’ pumpkin patch, offer some games to play as well as educational stations.”

Kent,  and the students keep the community updated on the happenings with this small but growing ag program through its own Facebook page.

“This allows the community to know what’s going on ag-related at the school,” Kent said. “There’s five years of history on that Facebook page of ours, allowing the community to know how all this took place.”