Indian Creek High School junior Hailey Pemberton, left, pours feed while sophomore Avery Weesner looks on Friday at the Indian Creek schools beef farm.
ANDY BELL-BALTACI | DAILY JOURNAL
Over the last 28 months, Indian Creek students have seen a wealth of opportunities for learning on the school farm. Students have opened a beef farm on campus, started a farm-to-table program, created their own company and now can take classes on the farm.
The farm isn’t done growing. In January, school officials added four acres of pasture to expand cattle capacity and installed a concert floor in the barn classroom on the property. The students from Creek Cattle Company put in sweat equity, working with J&J Custom Concrete of Indianapolis and Ever-Last Concrete Inc. of Greenwood to pour concrete for the barn’s floor. Leadership Johnson County covered half the cost of the $12,000 concrete pour and installed new water lines to the pastures, said Joe Dunn, Indian Creek High School agriculture teacher.
Cattle Creek Company heads marketing efforts for the Indian Creek farm and networks with other local agriculture companies, said Luke Skobel, Indian Creek High School’s principal.
With the new floor, students will have classroom space and an area to accurately track animal data, such as weight. On the hard, flat surface, animal scales will read accurately and be able to tell students and teachers how much weight animals are gaining when they eat different types of feed, Dunn said.
“We started with two donated calves and a donated cow. We’re up to six now. Our original plan was to harvest five (calves) within five years and we’ll achieve that this year. Our next goal is five per semester,” Dunn said.
The farm now has seven acres of fenced-in pasture and 11 acres of cropland, where students grow corn and soybeans. The extra pasture space will give the agriculture and FFA programs the room they need to harvest animals twice a year. Cows on the school farm are processed and turned into beef that is served to Indian Creek students in the cafeteria, Dunn said.
Creek Cattle Company also serves as the marketing organization for the school farm.
Indian Creek sophomore Avery Weesner is set to become FFA reporter for the 2023-24 school year, meaning she’ll publicize chapter activities. The farm has helped FFA members complete their Supervised Agricultural Experience, or SAE, without having to leave the school. The farm can also help younger students grow an interest in agriculture, Weesner said.
“This past year, we used the space to allow elementary school students to come over here and see the animals and the aspects of achievement out here, which is a big deal for the FFA chapter,” she said.
Indian Creek schools is one of two districts in Johnson County with its own farm. A farm on the campus of Franklin Community High School opened in 2019.
Since Indian Creek’s farm opened, interest in agriculture has grown. The school district now has four sections of Animal Science class and two sections of Advanced Life Science: Animals, both double the number offered before the farm opened, Dunn said in an email.
Indian Creek junior Hailey Pemberton isn’t part of the school’s FFA chapter but said she’s learned a lot from taking animal science classes at the school.
“We feed the animals, make sure their feeding beds are full and check on the general wellness of the animals,” Pemberton said. “It teaches us how to take care of animals. I don’t have animals at home, but I love seeing the calves and feeding and taking care of them. I’ve already learned so much.”
Ever since students raised $75,000 to build a barn, officially open the farm and start Cattle Creek Company, the operation has been entirely student-run, Skobel said.
“Going back four or five years, students have been part of every level of decision-making, including raising the funds for the barn when it initially opened,” he said. “It was a monumental task completely done by students and the responsibility and work ethic kids get out of it is a simple thing, but it’s important.”
