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>> My professional career began in 1951 as a county Extension agent
for the University of Georgia.
After about 4 years in that role I was moved into becoming the
University of Georgia’s Extension peanut specialist
working with county agents all across the peanut belt
and rounded out 31 years, wonderful years, as a
professional in UGA’s Agricultural Extension Service.
It was 1933 in the middle of the Great Depression,
I was 8 years old.
My oldest brother, James Millard,
was a rising senior studying agriculture at
the University of Georgia.
That memorable day, the rural mail carrier
came down our muddy road at his regular time
-so punctual, one could almost set the clock by him.
It was not unusual to receive a letter from my brother at UGA.
However, the one we received from him that day
contained some sad, sad news.
“Dear Mama and Daddy,
I’ll be coming home next week to help y’all make a crop.
There’s just no way for me to finish college –
no work, no money and I’ve borrowed the limit
from the student loan fund.
Maybe, just maybe, I can come back and finish
later next year when times get better.
Your son, James Millard”
Well three days later, about the same time
we were expecting Millard to arrive at home,
we received another more encouraging letter from him.
“Dear Mama and Daddy,
I’ve got some great news!
I’ve been told here at the university that they will accept
farm produce at the mess hall as payment for my tuition.
If you can spare some extra meat, syrup and potatoes,
I just might be able to finish college this year.
Your loving son, James Millard”
Business around our family farm really picked up.
On the first hard freeze, a few days later my Daddy butchered
two hogs and hung them up on the back porch
over the night of freezing temperatures.
The pilgrimage the next morning to Athens began at daybreak.
Daddy took those two butchered hogs,
rolled them in bed sheets and securely tied one
to each running board of our 1927 Model T Ford.
Then he removed the car’s backseat and filled the space
to overflowing with bushels of homegrown sweet potatoes and
1-gallon tin cans of homemade south Georgia syrup.
When all was loaded, Daddy turned to me and said
“Frank, your job is to operate the hand windshield wiper
and I’m going to let you go on this trip.”
Well I was thrilled beyond any measure of words
because I had never left Tift County.
I was to go on this trip and to journey to what was for me,
as a child, another world.
It was a long 200 miles but an exciting day
for the whole family.
We ran out of pavement at Gray, Georgia and
were met by deep red wet ruts that, at times,
dragged the Model T’s axles as we chugged along.
It wasn’t until after dark that we arrived at the
University’s campus and were put up for the night in
old Camp Wilkins where we met my brother.
He directed us to the dining hall nicknamed “The Beanery”
where we unloaded our haul and then he took us back to
Camp Wilkins on Ag Hill to spend the night.
Well, I remember how homesick I got for my Mama
in spite of my Daddy’s presence in the adjoining bunk bed –
proof that I had never left home before in that length of travel.
My Daddy made several trips to Athens that spring during
cold weather before planting time – I think it was 3 or 4.
The many trips with those loads of potatoes for a passenger car
– a 1927 Model T – that old transmission began
to whine and sing but it never failed to function.
We had used it as a truck and that transmission could not
carry many more trips like that.
But my family was not crying or complaining about anything.
We were joyful because my brother, because of the
University of Georgia’s College of Agriculture
lent a helping hand to my brother to finish his degree
and he did graduate in June of that same year.
Well what an impression UGA College of Agriculture
made on this 8-year old boy.
I decided then, that day after those trips,
that I wanted to know more about a place that would reach out
to my brother way down here in south Georgia, 200 miles away,
and make it possible for him- during those depression days-
to finish his college education at UGA.
Such was the beginning of a relationship with the college,
for me, which would eventually evolve into my tenure
of 31 years on UGA’s Extension faculty.
What a blessing.
Our whole family was, and still is, eternally grateful
to the University of Georgia’s College of Agriculture for
its Extension Outreach to a student like my brother,
from a small rural community and a very small farm,
who wanted nothing more than a chance to learn
and to get his education at UGA.
(c) 2014 University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Georgia Cooperative Extension