Fourth graders lined up in the shop at Miller Dairy for soft-serve ice cream cones after eating their fill of pizza. The group had just finished up a tour at the dairy, but the Millers weren’t giving the students a treat; they were repaying them for a favor.
Orville Miller spoke at Bluestem Elementary in Leon, Kansas six years ago about dairy operations. While he was there, he was amazed by the fourth grade’s agriculture program at Bluestem. The class had a small farm with a barn, hatched chicks in the classroom and incorporated ag into nearly all their lessons.
“I was amazed by what they’ve got going on down there,” Orville said. “It wasn’t like any fourth-grade class I’ve ever seen.”
Since then, the Bluestem fourth grade class has traveled to the Miller Dairy west of Hutchinson each April, and last fall, when Orville’s son, Brian Miller, was in farm accident that left him hospitalized and off the job, the Bluestem fourth graders took nine bottle calves to Leon to care for.
“We knew about the accident and thought ‘what can we do?’” fourth-grade teacher Angie Greene said.
The program started with a chicken coop and grew. Now the class has a 30-foot by 40-foot barn and pens at the farm, which houses calves, chickens, goats, sheep and an alpaca. They also have a greenhouse.
“We had the facility for it, and we wanted to do something,” added fourth-grade teacher Barb McCaffree. “They said ‘just pray,’ and we said ‘we are, but we want to do more.’”
Brian Miller was run over by a wheat drill when his tractor failed to stop Oct. 23, 2018. He was alone and laid in the field for six hours before Orville found him. He had serious external and internal injuries, including 11 broken ribs, a lacerated right knee and more.
The Bluestem fourth graders took nine calves from the Miller dairy to take care of while Brian recovered. McCaffree and Greene said bottle calves are the students’ favorite project anyway, so having more around was great.
Originally, Orville planned to leave the calves with them for a few weeks, but the calves ended up staying over four months.
“Originally they were just going to keep them while they were bottle fed,” Orville said. “But they ended up keeping them longer. They fed them solid food and even took their weights once a week to make sure they were gaining weight properly. The school even bought the food.”
So when it came time for Bluestem’s annual April trip to the dairy, Orville told them not to worry about bringing sack lunches — the pizza and ice cream were on him.
“We just want to thank you guys again for what you’ve done for us,” he said to the class.
Along with lunch, the students took a walking tour of the dairy — led in part by Brian, who is back home and on his feet. They learned about the diet of dairy cows, how they’re milked, where the milk goes and more.
Students even reunited with the calves they’d taken care of, petting them over the fence and feeding them chocolate.
Source: hutchnews.com
