Saxony Lutheran High School will introduce agriculture curriculum this fall

In a move that could attract more students to Saxony Lutheran High School, the campus will offer an agriculture science curriculum this fall. Danny McCrite, a Southern Illinois farmer who taught the subject for 23 years in the Egyptian School District at Tamms, Illinois, will lead the program.

"Ag science gives the students a lot of career-related training," says McCrite.

Having spent the past five years as elementary school principal in the Tamms school district, McCrite says he wanted to get back to the classroom and the subject in which he earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1982 and 1990.

Mark Ruark, principal at Saxony Lutheran, said in an interview with the Southeast Missourian that the school draws from Cape Girardeau and Perry counties and thought it was in their best interest to offer the program. Ruark said eighth-graders from its Lutheran feeder schools, and others who may be interested in Saxony, are invited to the campus for Future Freshmen Day. Students are surveyed to see why they do or don't plan to attend Saxony. The top three responses, particularly from students from Perry County and some outlying areas of Cape Girardeau County, are that Saxony didn't have an ag science program, offer football, or transportation, he said.

Danny McCrite (submitted photo)

It was decided ag science was the most doable.

Saxony has already registered 20 ag science students for the fall semester, and McCrite says enrollment probably will continue to increase until school starts next month. He is also starting an FFA chapter and will teach freshman algebra. His ag program will be for all grades.

"We felt very fortunate to get someone with his kind of experience," Ruark told the Southeast Missourian. "He has a farm, so he's a practicing farmer, along with being an educator. He just brought the right mix of everything to start our program."

McCrite, 57, and his wife, Julie, raise grain and livestock on 300 acres three miles west of Tamms, where their son, 19-year-old Alex, a sophomore at McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois, and 14-year-old daughter, Kelsey, who will be a high school freshman, help out. The couple has four grown children.

McCrite will begin his ag program with class work only, but he hopes to gain authorization to build a greenhouse for horticulture instruction and to start a shop to teach welding and mechanics.

"There is a lot of technology in modern-day agriculture, and I think I've got a pretty good handle on the marketing and communication technology," he says. "There are a lot of things that I can bring to the table."

Tony Buehrle, development director at Notre Dame Regional High School, says Notre Dame students have the option to take agriculture courses through the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center. Ruark says Saxony Lutheran is also creating a program that will feed into the center. Students also take classes at the Perryville Area Career and Technology Center.

Rich Payne, director of the Cape Girardeau center, said landscaping/horticulture and plant science are offered to high school students in the 12 school districts, including two private schools, that the campus serves.