MMS Farm to Table teacher shocked by unexpected grant

Taking care of a classroom of rowdy tweens eight hours a day for five days a week is a lot for some people. But for Farm to Table teacher Colby Turner, Wednesday afternoon made it so much better and easier.

Turner was left speechless when Lawton Public School Foundation board members surprised him with a certificate for a $5,586.02 grant.

“It’s amazing,” Turner said. “To be honest, when I was filling it out, I thought it was too much. I didn’t expect to get all of that.”

Turner plans to use the grant for many different projects including getting extra coops, another tiller and fruit trees.

“Right now, we’re looking into (planting the trees) into the sanctuary,” Turner said. “They already have some trees. They’re obviously fruit bearing, but they have the little name plates on them that tells you what they are.”

Turner has an open space behind the classroom where plans are for planting trees, bushes and even raising different kinds of livestock.

“The sanctuary right now is just sitting inside the chain link fence out here, which is where the greenhouse is,” Turner said. “They just have trees. There’s a pond out there right now. Ideally, I would like to eventually get some goats and cattle to keep the grass ate down. Plus, it would benefit us. I want to start milking goats to teach kids how to milk goats and try to sell that. I want to try to get a couple of steers and get those butchered more for us to have food to cook with in class. Right now, most of (our recipes are) like treats and sweets. I’d like to be able to do some meals with them so they can understand and actually cook a whole meal instead of just a dessert.”

When the kids seemed interested in collecting leaves, Turner turned to the trees.

“They started doing that again because that’s something I used to do in my science class,” Turner said. “I told my kids in the spring they may try to do that and teach them how to do the leaf press.”

The grant will give Turner’s class a better opportunity to flourish.

“It’s just going to help us continue to (expand) our curriculum,” Turner said. “We start out with the raised beds and we’ve got the ground beds. We started out with our little dog pen with our little bitty coop and then we’ve got two brand new coops. We’re just continuing to grow. We’re just spreading and spreading our wings.”

With the smell of homemade cookies baking in the oven and the little critters in their various pens, it’s no wonder the classroom is a mixture of a home economics room and an agricultural class. In a previous article_228fab65-6d62-5778-964b-625a64db5c86.html” target=”_blank”>article, Turner said they were using the eggs from their chickens to make homemade recipes.

“We learn how to grow vegetables,” Turner said. “We talk about soil types, ways to increase our fertility. We do a unit over chickens and we hatch our own eggs in our classroom. Almost all my hens had been from incubating in our class. We did it kind of the old school hard way.”

Turner has been teaching for 24 years, coaching for 20 years, then going on to teach middle school science and math.

“I was getting out of teaching,” Turner said. “My sister called me about this job because she was friends with Lindsey Hoerbert over at LRC.”

In a previous article, Kara Tipton-Smith LPSF board member said the foundation raises money yearly that go towards many different incentives such as grants. This year, they were able to fund 145,000 grants this year.