Warden shows off local agriculture

Event demonstrates importance of agriculture to Warden community

WARDEN — If certain adults have their way, the present generation of children won't grow up thinking that their food comes from a grocery store.

A committee, including Warden Elementary teacher Debbie Sackmann, got together last year to put on Parent Power Night as an opportunity to bring the community, the children and the parents together.

"A lot of these kids, their parents work in the potatoes, but you ask them, 'How does a potato grow?' and they have no clue," Sackmann said. "And 'Where does your food come from?' 'The grocery store.' Farmers are an endangered species, and now it's really tough, especially with fuel prices."

Sackmann doesn't think people realize how those high prices impact farmers. They'll wake up, she said, if there's no food or if the country is dependent upon other countries to provide the food.

"It's important for kids, parents, everyone, to know where our food comes from, how important it is to support our agricultural community," she said, pointing out another poster on display showing how farmers create jobs, which create more jobs, and so on. "This is our economic base … It's just really an education."

Thursday night marked the second such event, as parents, children and community members gathered in the Warden Elementary gymnasium to show off the importance of such agricultural products as wheat and potatoes to their area.

Displays included how to make bread from wheat, a timeline along the school hallways, how to turn a potato into a battery and the stages of wheat.

Travis and Andrea Visker have a first-grader at the school.

"I think potatoes in Warden are an important part of this area," Travis said. "They employ a lot of people. Without wheat and potatoes, there wouldn't be near the jobs."

"It's educating these kids that the food doesn't come right off the grocery store shelves, that their dads and their uncles are helping to create it," Andrea added.

That message appears to be coming across.

Fifth-grader Abby Richins was showing people how to hook a clock up to a potato and make it work.

"This is pretty fun, and you get to show other people how to do it, and then you get to share, and they get to learn how to do it too," Richins said. "It's just fun learning that energy comes from a potato."

"I like potatoes and wheat," declared fourth-grader Miguel Esparza, recalling a time in first grade that his teacher made a bread that he enthusiastically said tasted good. "Potatoes and wheat are really part of our state."