Duncan Merritt of Stuart graduated from the 2016 Governor’s School for Agriculture held at Virginia Tech from June 26 to July 23.
Merritt, a senior at Patrick County High School, was one of 100 rising junior and senior high-school students from across the Commonwealth selected to participate in the month-long summer residential program for gifted students interested in agriculture and natural resources.
The program was developed in 2001 to provide hands-on, cutting-edge, scientific, and academic instruction to future leaders and scientists to promote their understanding of the scope, opportunities, and challenges, through academic and scientific rigor of the broad fields of agriculture, human health, natural resources, and veterinary medicine.
Students received instruction from Virginia Tech professors in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Natural Resources, and the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. In addition, agricultural education teachers from school divisions around the state joined the school’s faculty.
“The Virginia Governor’s School for Agriculture is a great way to introduce Virginia’s youth to the science of agriculture,” said Curtis Friedel, GSA director and assistant professor of agriculture, leadership, and community education in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Many of the students attending our program don’t have an agricultural background, so it is very informative for them to see all the possible career in agriculture available to them.”
Each student was assigned to a “major,” a class made up of about 20 students, based on his or her interests. These included animal science, plant science, food science, agricultural and biosystems engineering, and agricultural economics, with leadership classes integrated into each program.
