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Show The Thunderbird Monday March 25, 1385 Page 3 Valley Farm: a classroom in the rough Right and below, Brad Reeve, a senior majoring in biology, takes a look at some of the livestock at Valley Farm, where he employed fulltime. is This classroom is the great outdoors BY STEWART SMITH he says. The rotund, Matthews also remembers thatthe barns once stood where the P.E. Building is today and that the baseball diamond was once a sprawling field of alfalfa. According to Matthews, the Valley Farm was bought by Utah State University in 1943. SUSC was then known as the Branch Agricultural Collegeand a part of USU. When the school became SUSC in 1967 the farm became part of its campus. As Matthews surveys the numerous barnwood gray buildings he notices several of the farms fulltime employees. The men are busily herding a dozen auditorium is, silver-haire- d r"! s the battered blue pickup C wth cattIe racks gently U IUJ rolls to a stop, a migrating tumbleweed is crushed beneath its manure and tires. The driver slides out from under the steering wheel into the brisk afternoon. A cold, gusty wind cuts into Cedar valley and the mans yellow cap is nearly sent sailing. With a yank he pulls it down tight. Southern Utah State College Valley Farm is stitched on the cap, beneath it an embroidered cow with hereford on it. The driver, Darrell Matthews, is once again in his classroom, the college farm. Matthews is SUSCs professor of animal science and livestock management and oversees the work done on the farm with sheep and cattle. Each week he makes numerous trips to the farm from his office in the Science Building. Four miles west of Cedar City the farm is serenely situated along a sparsely traveled dirt road. To the east of the farm are the rolling, juniper-covere- d foothills, where a short distance away SUSCc Ashcroft Observatory peers toward the heavens. To the west of the farm lies the valley, vast and immense, blanketed blue and green by the sagebrush. We have about 600 acres out here, Matthews says, gesturing toward the d plain. Matthews has been working here since 1950 and has seen the farm come a long way. I remember years ago in the spring of the year when theyd graze the sheep where the mud-staine- & $$ t I i. Jl if I - TWi wind-riddle- ' 4, d Four miles west of Cedar City, the SUSC Valley Farm is a peaceful place. sheep into holding pens. A man in a levi jacket and sweat stained Stetson speaks up. This is mainly a sheep station, he says in a southern Utah drawl. The man is Ron Williams, the farms manager. That one old gals got something in her eye, he says to one of the hands. One of the men jumps the plank fence and examines the ailing ewe. Reaching out at another sheep, he yanks a large tuft of wool from its side and cleans the ewes eye. We have about 1,500 head of sheep and 60 cows, Matthews says. We keep them here and on the desert in the winter and in the spring and Rummer black-face- d (continued on page 10) |