The Nevada Agricultural Education website lists 30 schools with agricultural education programs. The reason for this low number compared to other states is because:
- Agriculture is not important in Nevada.
- The climate in Nevada is not suitable for agricultural crops.
- More than 80 percent of the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government.
- The aliens in Area 51 have contaminated the soil.
The correct answer is C. Of the 17 counties in Nevada, 16 of the counties have more than 50% of their land under federal control. The population of Nevada is a little over 3 million. Nearly three-fourths of the population lives in Clark County, the home of Las Vegas.
Agriculture is important in Nevada but the demographics and history of the state does not support having hundreds of schools with agricultural education programs. In comparison to other states, the number of schools in Nevada teaching agriculture is small.
In Stimson and Lathrop’s History of Agricultural Education, the chapter about Agricultural Education in Nevada begins as follows (1942, p. 281):
The records show that less than 15 percent of the land in Nevada is privately owned and one-half of this belongs to the railroads, as a result of Federal land grants at the time these roads were built…The centers of farm population are located in irrigated valleys, and here is where the schools are that offer agricultural instruction…There are many large livestock ranches scattered over the state, most of them located adjacent to mountain streams, natural springs, and range land. The people occupying these are isolated to such an extent that they cannot be provided with organized courses of instruction in vocational agriculture. Because of these conditions, the problems relative to the vocational agriculture programs are quite different from those of most other states.
This preamble sets the stage for exploring the beginning of agricultural education in Nevada. During the 1917-18 school year three schools in the state qualified for Smith-Hughes funding to teach agriculture. These schools were the Douglas County High School in Gardnerville, the Virgin Valley High School in Bunkerville, and the Metropolis High School in Metropolis.
The First State Supervisor of Agricultural Education in Nevada
When was the last time the hiring of the state supervisor for agricultural education made the front page of your local newspaper? In Nevada, it was probably in 1919. The Record-Courier of Gardnerville had a lengthy article about agriculture education programs (and the hiring of the state supervisor) on June 27, 1919 (See Figure 1). This article was reprinted in several Nevada newspapers. Some of the highlights of the article were:
- Homer Derr was hired to be the state supervisor of agricultural education. He previously held that position in Arizona.
- The position involved supervising the agricultural education programs, promoting agricultural education across the state AND serving as an itinerant teacher trainer (this means he traveled the state teaching the teachers how to teach). At times he held classes for teachers. (Note: It was not until 1937-38 that a teacher educator was hired at the University of Nevada but this person also taught high school agriculture classes in the Reno and Sparks High Schools for 1/3 of each day.)
- The supervisor was to prepare written reports of each school he visited for the state director of vocational education.
- For the 1919-20 school year six schools received Smith-Hughes funding to teach agriculture.
- “Learn by doing” was the agriculture class slogan.
- The state director of vocational education saw three important needs in the state –reclamation, good roads, and adequate training of youth for the leading industries.
Figure 1. From the Gardnerville Record-Courier, June 27,1919
The Curriculum
Up until 1930 the agricultural education curriculum consisted of four courses – crop production, livestock production, farm management and farm mechanics. Typically, the instruction revolved around the home projects of the students.
Initially very few schools had the facilities or equipment to teach farm mechanics. However, several schools had the students build such facilities. When this happened it typically made the news.
The Daily Appeal of Carson City reported (September 20, 1919, p. 1 ):
The Yerington high school vocational agriculture class will soon be busily engaged building a farm mechanics shop. A pit will be provided so that “farm flivvers” can be duly treated for their various disorders and indispositions.
The Record-Courier of Gardnerville, dated December 16, 1921, had an entire page devoted to “Manual Training and Farm Mechanics at the Douglas High School” The article was written by C. L. Hargrave, the vocational agricultural instructor at the high school. The full page article had eight photographs and details about each phase of the construction of the ag mechanics shop. One section of the article stated (page 7):
Partly because of scarcity of funds, but largely because of an appreciation of the educational opportunities presented. It was decided that the construction should be exclusively by the labor of the boys…Each boy participated in every phase of the work and attained an acceptable proficiency…The morale of the workers at all times was splendid, the boys seeming to appreciate that this educational opportunity was both unusual and valuable.
Figure 2. From The Record-Courier of Gardnerville, Nevada. December 16, 1921. It is acknowledged the image may be too small to read but depicts the importance of the information contained in the article. CTRL-C will enlarge the image if you want to read it.
So what did the boys do with the new shop at the Douglas County High School? In 1922 the agricultural students created the “Farm Shop Service Company”. The students provided their services to local farmers and charged a fee for a variety of shop related tasks such as sharpening saws, replacing handles, and building farm equipment such as hog troughs. Part of the receipts went to the school, but the remainder was divided among the students who performed the work. See Figure 3.
Figure 3. From the Gardnerville Record-Courier, January 15, 1922
At Douglas County High School, Farm Shop became a two year course in 1922. The Farm Shop course was described as follows (Gardnerville Record-Courier, 1922, p. 1):
…intended to teach boys to become more self-reliant and to make him more useful in solving the many problems that confront the average farmer. An outline of the points to be considered for 1922-23 include tool sharpening, fundamentals of carpentry, saw fitting, belt lacing, soldering, agricultural drawing, rivets and riveting, bolts and bolting, drilling, taping and threading, working with taps and dies, vise work, hot metal workings, gas engine and auto repair jobs, miscellaneous farm machinery concrete work.
The Nevada State Journal (November 2, 1929) reported that the “farm boys” in vocational agriculture class at Churchill County High School in Fallon had just completed constructing a 14 x 28 shop building. (See Figure 4).
Figure 4. From the Nevada State Journal, November 2, 1929
After 1930 the courses were identified as Agriculture I, II, II, IV.
The growth of agricultural education in Nevada might be considered slow in the views of some people. In a speech to the Carson Valley Rotary in December of 1947, the state supervisor of agriculture education, Floyd Dowler, stated (Reno Gazette-Journal, December 18. 1947):
Vocational agriculture is provided in 10 high schools in Nevada at the present time – Gardnerville, Yerington, Smith Valley, Fallon, Lovelock, Lund, Alamo, Panaca, Bunkerville and Overton.
The 1963 Agriculture Teachers Directory identified 12 schools in Nevada as having agricultural education programs. Ten years later, when the 1973 Agriculture Teachers Directory was published, four additional schools were listed. See Figure 5.
Figure 5. Left image from the 1963 Agricultural Teachers Directory. The image on the right is from the 1973 Directory.
By the year 2000 the number of schools with agricultural education programs in Nevada had grown to 22 according to the Agricultural Educators Directory. Today agricultural education is taught in 30 schools in Nevada according to the Nevada Agricultural Education website.
Concluding Remarks
“Good things come in small packages” is a popular idiom meaning that valuable, high-quality, or significant things do not need to be large. This idiom could apply to agricultural education in Nevada. Even though the number of agricultural education programs in the state is small compared to other states, the program continues to make an impact in the lives of students.
In some parts of the state the curriculum focuses on production agriculture because that is still important in those communities. In other parts of the state we see CASE (Curriculum for Agricultural Science Education) classes being implemented. In Las Vegas the West Career and Technical Academy has a program in biotechnology and in environmental sciences. Northwest Career and Technical Academy in Las Vegas has a veterinary science program. Numerous schools have greenhouses and teach classes in horticulture. The curriculum has evolved.
Agricultural education in Nevada has progressed greatly from the days the students were building farm shops on the school grounds.