Town: Niangua, Mo.
County: Webster
Family: Elijah Horne
In Town: Allison Horne is the agriculture teacher for the Niangua R-5 School for the coming year.
“I grew up close to Niangua,” she said. Allison and her husband, Elijah, have made their home in Niangua, so being close to home is a big factor. Part of being an ag teacher is spending some late nights out with kids at contests. So being close to your own home definitely makes it worth it and nice. My whole family, on my dad’s side, went to school here and I know it’s a good school.”
In the Country: “I grew up on a beef farm; a cow/calf operation. We had mixed breeds, mostly black. Now I breed dogs, rabbits and chickens. We help with the goats at my in-laws. I do more of the breeding side of it. They definitely still help, but I set up all our AI visits, because we do artificial insemination with the goats. I’ve been there for every birth. I think I’ve only missed two,” Allison said.
Since they live in town they have to have small animals. “I would eventually love to have miniature horses or donkeys. That’s the goal,” Allison added.
Why do you think Agriculture is an important subject for school?
“Agriculture is what the whole country and world is based around. It’s such an important thing. A lot of people don’t realize how many parts of Agriculture there are. People still think of FFA as Future Farmers of America and it’s not just farming anymore. Even the medical field has agriculture sides to it. One of my favorite subjects to teach is the bug unit, because I get to talk about forensics. A lot of people don’t think forensics and criminology would have anything to do with Ag, but it’s a huge part of the Ag world,” Allison said.
She said it is great to be able to “show kids all the options even though they’re like ‘I’m not going for an ag degree. I don’t want to farm the rest of my life,’ but are still going into something that might relate to Ag and be useful.”
Allison is also able to show students how a lot of their core classes, like algebra and English classes, will relate to a job outside.
“One of the big things I show kids is how Algebra 2 is exactly how we do pesticide formulas. So if they’re doing anything on their farm that needs pesticides I can show them how Algebra 2 helps, and the kids see that it’s important. It’s the same with teaching them how to write a cover letter for a job. We do all that in ag. They have to fill out their own stuff for awards, because they’ll have to have these writing skills when they get out of school. That’s why English is important. I get to explain to them why their core classes matter and how it’s applied in the real world,” Allison said.
