‘A unique project and partnership’
Several dignitaries, officials, local students and others participated in a groundbreaking last week for a new SEED Academy in Russell County.
By Wade Daffron
TJ Editor
With near perfect weather, and the sounds of construction wafting through the air, Russell County Industrial Development Authority Chairman Clint Voils couldn’t help but smile.
Voils approached a lectern set up under a tent-with a row of shovels and a large pile of dirt directly behind him.
Over his shoulder was a series of beams erected for what will soon be one of the many diamonds in the county’s crown.
“It’s been a long time in the making,” Voils told a large crowd gathered Friday just off French Valley Road in Russell Springs.
Voils was speaking about a new SEED Academy being constructed not far from the Russell County High School, Middle School, and the Lake Cumberland Regional College & Workforce Center.
“It started several years ago,” he explained at last week’s groundbreaking. “The idea of the SEED Academy was born out of a need to extend on what was offered at the Lake Cumberland Regional College & Workforce Center.”
As visionaries, the Russell County Industrial Development Authority (RCIDA) recognized a growing interest in AgriTech and seized an opportunity.
“We bounced around ideas and took a new initiative,” Voils said.
Committed to the community, the IDA planned, networked, and moved forward under the guise of finding a way to “provide jobs and use those jobs and the training that this facility can create,” Voils said.
Which is a philosophy in which State Representative Josh Branscum, of Russell Springs, both praised and participated.
“This is an exciting and momentous day,” Branscum said, “for our educators, and our future for agriculture in our region. We’re not just turning soil; we’re planting the very seeds of opportunity.”
Branscum said the SEED Academy is a “powerful story.”
State Representative Josh Branscum, left, and Russell County Judge Executive Randy Marcum greeted attendees of a groundbreaking last week for a new, local SEED Academy.
“This will not be just another school,” he said. “It will…connect our students directly with the land…and cutting-edge agricultural practices. For generations, agriculture has been the backbone of our county, and our great Commonwealth. It’s a way of life.”
The new facility will help students prepare for the ever-changing field of agriculture.
“Farmers are expected to be scientists, businesspeople, technologists, and stewards of the environment,” Branscum said. “The SEED Academy is our answer to that reality.”
Russell County School Superintendent Michael A. Ford said the new facility will be an extension of “our robust agricultural program.”
Russell County School Superintendent Michael A. Ford praised the collaborations which brought the SEED Academy to fruition.
Ford praised the IDA for “wanting to partner with us.”
“It’s a unique project and partnership,” Voils said.
The Seed Academy℠ is an idea conceived by the RCIDA to address an immediate education and workforce sector need: future agriculture, a synopsis on the IDA website said.
“The plan is to develop a regional center to study and advance the latest agricultural sciences and technologies,” the IDA said. “The momentum for such an educational facility has been bolstered with support from regional schools and colleges, as well as agricultural industries which have offered to help with the curriculum. The plan calls for the RCIDA to build and own the center, while the Russell County Schools will maintain and staff the facility. As modeled by the existing College and Workforce Center, the goal is to share the facility and equipment with area colleges for evening adult instruction. A number of colleges have already voiced strong support and commitments to funding applications.”
The SEED Academy project has been funded through a $376,000 Rural Development Grant, a $1,478,973 USDA-RCAP Grant, and a $3 million contribution from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
The RCIDA and the Russell County Board of Education also made financial contributions.
Russell County Industrial Development Authority (RCIDA) Chairman Clint Voils spoke about the process to bring the SEED Academy to the area.
The AgriTech facility is located on 11 acres donated by the IDA at the Lake Cumberland Regional Industrial Complex Site One.
The project hopes to capitalize on AgriTech-which is becoming a major sector in Kentucky’s economy.
It might be nice, instead of a football stadium, a ballfield, and six tennis courts stressing sports that few will ever succeed at, to instead put a vocational school in that area for carpentry, electronics, and plumbing. College is not for everyone, almost no one will go pro in sports, but young people can make a great living at vocational jobs, and the opportunities ought to be provided. As it is, we pay exorbitant school taxes and education in Kentucky is rated #32 out of 50 states for education in general. We can and should do better!