Farm-City tours set for Tuesday and Wednesday

Published 10:00 am Thursday, October 31, 2019

LaFAYETTE — The Chambers County Farm-City Committee met Monday afternoon to finalize plans for this year’s Farm-City tours.

The children’s tour will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 5 and Nov. 6. Third-grade students from schools in the Chambers County School District, Lanett City Schools, Springwood and Chambers Academy will participate. Half of them will be visiting the new farm on the campus of the Chambers County Career Technical Center and half will be going to the Slay Farm in White Plains.

The adult tour will be taking place on Thursday, Nov. 14. A total of 15 people have committed to the bus tour and some seats are still available. Contact Carrie Royster, executive director of the Greater Valley Area Chamber of Commerce, at (334) 644-1411 or croyster@greatervalleyarea.com to register. There is no cost.

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Participants on the tour will meet at the Chamber office behind McDonald’s in Valley at 8 a.m. for a complimentary breakfast. The bus will load at 8:45 a.m. for Norbord, Gilbert’s Christmas Tree Farm and West Point Dam. At about 10 a.m., attendees will be able to see OSB being made at Norbord’s Barton Mill in the Huguley Industrial Park. At 10:30 a.m., Tree Farm Owner Ray Gilbert will talk about growing and harvesting trees on his Christmas tree farm.

At about noon, the group will stop for lunch at Pokey’s, and at about 1 p.m. will load the bus for the short trip to West Point Dam, where they will be taken on a tour by personnel from the West Point Project office.

Major T.J. Wood of the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office is the chairman of the 2019 Farm-City Committee. He said both the farm tour by the children and the industry tour by the grown-ups should be interesting. He’s hoping for lots of participation on both.

This year’s awards program will be taking place at the ALFA Building in LaFayette on Tuesday evening, Nov. 19. Winners in the poster design, coloring book and essay contests will be receiving their awards during the program.