Chalkboard: Riverheads ag students provide lunch; Hatchers' legacy honored; retired teachers award scholarships

Riverheads ag class serves student-raised hog for lunch

GREENVILLE — On Tuesday, Riverheads agriculture students, along with the rest of the student body, got a chance to literally taste the results of their hard work this school year.

As part of four livestock production classes, an elective class at Riverheads High School, students learned entrepreneurship skills, livestock care practices, and food safety steps while raising a pair of hogs. On Tuesday, sausage from the market hogs were served as part of the school lunch.

"We raised our own lunch," Riverheads student Kaitlyn Kiser said. "Homemade."

The cafeteria was on board to help. Manager Stephanie Mass was happy to help the students.

"It's very important for these students that they see where their food is coming from," Mass said. "We try to do a lot of scratch cooking in this school with fresh grown fruits and vegetables also. We use a lot of that here and they appreciate it."

The hogs were purchased in October from a local farmer. Students spent the next six months or so raising the animals.

"Every day we went out there and took their water and feed," said Riverheads student Kadyn Harris. "Once a week, on Fridays, we cleaned their pens and put new straw in. We weighed them Fridays when we cleaned their pens to see how much they were gaining."

The pigs started off around 100 pounds, maybe a little less, and when they were sold they were 330.

Kiser had grown up on a beef farm, so hogs were new to her.

"I really didn't know that much about pigs," she said. "I learned how to take care of them, how much they need to eat in a day, and just care overall."

Whitney Bowman is in her first year teaching.

"I just think it's really important when you get kids in front of animals and get that hands-on experience," Bowman said. "In the livestock production class they were able to really see the project to completion. We did some breakeven analysis, some average daily gain, some nutrition analysis. It's a lot easier when you're looking at an animal and learning about the real world than a hypothetical problem on the board."

Scholarship honors legacy of Paul and Judy Hatcher

STAUNTON – A new scholarship fund will honor the lives and legacies of Staunton's Paul and Judy Hatcher.

The Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge recently announced the opening of the Paul and Judy Hatcher Memorial Scholarship Fund. Judy Hatcher died in 2018, and Paul Hatcher passed away in 2023. Once their two sons, Jarrett and Brandon, had a chance to do some of the initial grieving, the two began thinking through ways to honor their parents’ legacy.

Paul is the winningest public school boys’ basketball coach in Virginia, with 897 wins. At one point during his Hall-of-Fame tenure, the team won 85 consecutive games. The consecutive wins were the subject of a book, The Staunton Streak.

However, Jarrett believes his parents’ legacy is much bigger than basketball.

“My brother Brandon and I had talked about starting the scholarship. Someone at the school said, ‘Hey, we heard you might do a scholarship. I’d like to donate,’” Jarrett said. “My dad was a teacher in Staunton City Schools for 45 years. My mom was a teacher in Staunton City Schools for about 20 years. She took time off to have my brother and me. Both my parents moved here because of education. My dad, as successful as he was, and everybody knows the basketball stuff, he was also a pretty darn good teacher."

Jarrett said his parents were a partnership, which is why this scholarship includes both.

"They both impacted this community and this high school," Jarrett said.

The announcement of the scholarship comes as Jarrett announces his own departure from Staunton City Schools after 32 years of service, with the last 30 being as a history teacher. The next school year will be the first time since 1965 that one of the Hatchers hasn’t been employed by Staunton City Schools.

Dan Layman, CEO of the Community Foundation, is excited that his organization can help perpetuate the Hatcher legacy through philanthropy.

"I consider it a great privilege to play a role in honoring the incredible legacy of Paul and Judy Hatcher in the life of our community and public school system,” Layman said. “The record of their impact on the development of Staunton's young men and women should be preserved and serve as an example for us all to follow."

Jarrett hopes the scholarship does in the future what his parents Paul and Judy did for so many students in the past — help the recipients continue with a quality education.

“I’d like for it to be able to provide a little bit of help along the way,” Jarrett said. “That’s what my parents did. They helped others. A lot of the times, that happened privately with no fanfare. I would like to be able to help students who want to further their education. We just want to provide a little bit of help, and keep their legacy of service alive.”

The Community Foundation welcomes contributions to the Paul and Judy Hatcher Scholarship, which may be mailed to the Foundation at P.O. Box 815, Staunton, VA 24402, or offered online at www.cfcbr.org.

Augusta Retired Educators Association awards scholarships

STAUNTON — The Augusta Retired Educators Association recently awarded scholarships to three area students. Bea Morris, a retired teacher from Staunton, said the group wants to help students continue their education in whatever field they choose.

This year, on May 2 at Rowe's Restaurant in Staunton, Trinity Biggs of Waynesboro High School, Gavin Webb of Stuarts Draft High School and Meredith Jones of Wilson Memorial High School were honored at a luncheon for the recipients and their families.

Webb said he is looking to pursue computer science at either the University of Virginia or James Madison University. Jones is headed to the University of South Carolina to major in exercise science. Biggs will be attending Piedmont Virginia Community College where she wants to pursue a healthcare profession, studying medical imaging.

"It means a lot," Jones said of the scholarship. "To be recognized and to have some aid to pursue my dreams."

Morris said they chose three scholarship recipients to spend out the fund, which had enough in it to award scholarships this year and the next two years. The group will be disbanding because of dwindling membership and attendance, Morris said.

"However, on the bright side, the group decided to continue to meet three times a year to socialize and to keep up with issues that affect active and retired teachers and education," Morris said.

Kate Collins Middle School honored

WAYNESBORO — Common Sense, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting digital citizenship among students, has honored Kate Collins Middle School as a Common Sense School.

Led by the leadership of Tracy Goodson, KCMS Librarian, the school community has prioritized digital citizenship education and equipping students with the skills to think critically and use technology responsibly to learn, create, and participate while preparing them for the perils that exist in the online realm, such as plagiarism, loss of privacy and cyberbullying. The recognition acknowledges KCMS's commitment to creating a culture of digital citizenship.

"We applaud the faculty and staff of Kate Collins Middle School for embracing digital citizenship as an important part of their students' education," said Liz Kline, vice president of education programs at Common Sense Education. "KCMS deserves high praise for giving its students the foundational skills they need to compete and succeed in the 21st-century workplace and participate ethically in society at large."

KCMS has been using Common Sense Education's innovative and research-based digital citizenship resources, which were created in collaboration with researchers from Project Zero, led by Howard Gardner at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and are grounded in the real issues students and teachers face. The resources teach students, educators, and parents tangible skills related to internet safety, protecting online reputations and personal privacy, media balance, managing online relationships, and media literacy. The free K–12 curriculum is used in classrooms across all 50 states, in more than 80,000 schools by more than 1,00,000 educators.

"We're honored to be recognized as a Common Sense School," said Marcia Nester, KCMS principal. "By preparing our students to use technology safely and responsibly, we are providing them an opportunity to build lifelong habits to help them succeed in a tech-driven world."

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— Patrick Hite is The News Leader's education reporter. Story ideas and tips always welcome. Contact Patrick (he/him/his) at phite@newsleader.com and follow him on Twitter @Patrick_Hite. Subscribe to us at newsleader.com.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Student-raised hog for lunch at Riverheads; Hatchers' legacy honored; more: Chalkboard