Distinguished Citizen for 2024: Rachel Dawsey is growing an agricultural legacy

Mar. 30—Sometime around the turn of the millennium, a handful of local leaders — leaders such as Tom "Big Doc" Williamson and the late Chester Freeman and Jim Boyd — aimed their attention at making future generations aware of Cullman County's agricultural past. Apart from agrarian concerns, the area had lately seen broader success with the growth of Heritage Park and other recently expanded (or newly arrived) enrichments. But a question persisted: "How can we do the same thing for agriculture?"

Out of that idea came the inspiration for the North Alabama Agriplex, a legislatively created nonprofit based in Cullman, and tasked with engaging the public through compelling historical narratives, useful hands-on instruction and continuing outreach programs that showcase the area's rich and enduring rural roots.

Beginning with an unpaid board of directors in 2001, the Agriplex started life as a busy, but amorphous organization with no headquarters; an ad hoc operating entity long before it ever had a space of its own to call home. Then in 2012, the Agriplex Board opened the Heritage Center in Cullman, a move that immediately helped supplement its existing lineup of Touring Farms for Kids activity with a far bigger offering of onsite learning opportunities.

Agriplex director Rachel Dawsey, a Cullman native who returned to her hometown to take on her leadership role right at about the time of the Heritage Center's construction, remembers those early days well.

"That year, we were doing a Christmas wreath program," she recalls, gesturing toward the center's shiny concrete floor. "You can still see the stains on the concrete from all the squished holly berries. We didn't even have the floor sealed at that point!"

The Heritage Center — a name that for many guests has become interchangeable with the Agriplex itself — has since become a monthly destination for the many thousands of guests who during the years have taken part in its ever-expanding program of how-to classes and lectures. Building the center, says Dawsey, "took a lot of effort and a lot of volunteers. It was all new construction; a metal frame building overlaid with wood paneling that was all sawn on the sawmill just next door at the Peinhardt Farm.

"Brian Buegler [a former longtime Cullman County sheriff's lieutenant who passed away in 2022] worked with trustees from the jail to come out and help with the labor, and Jerry Eddleman [who passed away last February] served as a kind of volunteer contractor," Dawsey says. "We're really excited that Jerry's name is going to be on the lobby in our new building, because he was very instrumental in helping us to be where we are now."

Where the Agriplex is now, in fact, is on the cusp of expanding its physical footprint yet again — this time with a new Community Hub and teaching kitchen facility that, when finished, will merge the Agriplex with the Cullman County offices of the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, while vastly compounding the Agriplex's ability to offer multiple onsite activities all at once.

The capital campaign to fund upcoming construction on the 8,500-square-foot Community Hub building is well past the halfway point toward its goal of raising $2.3 million. And, like most every other major new initiative she's helmed in her 12 years as director, Dawsey has found success improvising her way through a unique Agriplex challenge that has no prior blueprint; no precedent, to follow.

Dawsey's the kind of person who finds a way to credit everyone except herself for the steady ascent of the Agriplex, which in 2024 is officially celebrating its 24th year of operation — and half of it under her leadership.

"We've been very dependent on our volunteers over the years. Our sewing camp, for instance, is almost entirely run by volunteers — very skilled volunteers, many of whom are retired Home Ec teachers," she says. "The [Cullman County] Master Gardeners also have been a huge resource to us. and our partnerships that we have, like our partnership with the Extension system — those have all been wonderful. A lot of our classes are taught by Extension experts."

In its mission, the Agriplex is first and foremost an educational endeavor. But for many who enjoy its classes and how-tos — a diverse menu of offerings that cover every imaginable DIY skill, from sewing to beekeeping to small engine maintenance to fresh-produce cooking to basement beer brewing and much more — there's a rewardingly fun recreational aspect to rediscovering the resourceful secrets that call to mind the industriousness of our local Cullman County ancestors.

Dawsey's own ancestry, in many ways, set her on a trajectory of home-grown interests and passions that, in hindsight, make her seem almost destined to have answered the Agriplex's need for leadership. Chester Freeman, her maternal grandfather, was instrumental in assessing the Cullman community's needs and mustering the necessary local will to bring assets like Heritage Park to fruition; while her father's side of the family has never strayed far from the Peinhardt farm soil just a stone's throw away from the Agriplex Heritage Center's west Cullman location.

Add to that Dawsey's own educational and career background — a past that includes a Zoology degree from Auburn University, plus experience-building stops helping oversee parks programs in Newport News, Va., and Champaign County, Ill. — and it's quickly apparent that her importance to the Agriplex scales far beyond that of a simple director-for-hire administrator.

Dawsey's investment in both her community and, more specifically, in her aptly selected vocation, shines through when she talks about Cullman; when she talks about the Agriplex itself; and when she talks about the people she's come to know through more than a decade of welcoming local families into her rural-focused world.

"If you look at the picture behind you, the photo of the little kids sewing — that was our first or second year of sewing camp," she says from inside the Heritage Center's main meeting area, motioning toward a nearby program poster featuring events that are several years, by now, in the past.

"You see that little girl holding the doll in the purple shirt?" she says. "She's a graduating senior this year! We've been in here over a decade now, and it's been wonderful to see the kids who started out with us grow up with us. Here, we really build relationships with families and kids, and we get to see them throughout their whole school career. It's one of the things I love most about the Agriplex."

That kind of personal investment can't be feigned, borrowed or copied, and, unless it's genuine, it certainly can't be sustained through more than 12 years of bootstrapped growth that so heavily relies on the good will that Dawsey's fostered with both her tiny Agriplex staff ("We do a lot with a little!" she says.), as well as with the wider Cullman community.

"It's just been such a 'yes' community," she reflects. "When we first wanted to start working with local schools, well, everyone stepped up and was willing to partner with us. I know of other places where similar organizations didn't have that kind of buy-in from the local community. To me, it's been just so rewarding to get to do what I love, and to see how receptive Cullman has been at every step."

For her tireless commitment to growing, enriching and successfully achieving her predecessors' vision for what the North Alabama Agriplex might someday become, and for doing it all with a smile — an effusive and accessible disposition that welcomes newcomers and longtime Agriplex partners, staff, and curious learners all in equal measure — The Cullman Times is honored to recognize Rachel Dawsey as its Distinguished Citizen for 2024.

As Dawsey and the Agriplex look toward their next big step in making the center a unique and vital resource for assuring that the best of our area's past survives and perhaps thrives for generations to come, all of us at The Times extends our heartfelt congratulations and thanks to Dawsey, and to the many local people she's helped bring together to celebrate, and continue, north Alabama's still-emerging agricultural legacy.

Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 234.