J.R. Nutt

October 27, 1915

I didn’t take Ag in high school, but I went into Vocational Agriculture at Mississippi State. Until the year I finished college, it was hard getting a job teaching vocational agriculture. But, the year I got out, the federal government tripled the appropriation for Agriculture teachers. Mississippi State graduated 78 Ag teachers the year I graduated and Auburn only graduated 16, so a lot of people started getting jobs in a lot of places.

            So I bought a car, left home with my suitcase, and I thought ‘I’ll stop by a place in Mississippi about an hour from me.’ And I thought, ‘Well, if I don’t get the job there I’ll drive over to Sand Rock.’ I had already been up there to look at it and I didn’t take it about two or three weeks before then. So I thought, ‘I’ll stop by in Alabama and if they haven’t got somebody to take the place, well, I’ll take it, and if they don’t, I’ll go on up to North Carolina.’ I drove on up to Centre, Alabama and Mr. Dewey Broom was county superintendent and I asked him if that place was still open at Sand Rock. And he said, ‘Yeah. Will you take it? If you’ll take it today, I’ll put you on the payroll as of the first of August.’ Well, that was one free week and that suited me because money was hard to come by then, so I took it. The pay was $150 a month. That’s what an Ag teacher made, and they had a schedule where they raised you $200 a year for, I believe, ten years. That was more than they were getting in Mississippi. Alabama paid more than Mississippi. I set out to be an agriculture teacher. I believe Mississippi paid about $1500 a year and Alabama paid around $1800. I started in 1937.

            Sand Rock back then was a really good little rural community, you know- two stores and two churches, good people. Those mountain folks were good people. You know that as well as I do. They were real good people. My wife was born and reared there. Her daddy was elected sheriff of that county, so he moved to Centre.

            All the boys in the community really liked it when we started that Ag program up there. As a matter of fact, they were kind of carried away with it. I did a lot of work. Actually, I had the afternoon off. I taught four classes, or three. Anyway, I’d take some boys around in the afternoon and do worlds of terracing. You know, back then there were very few terraces, so we terraced most all of that land that was out there. We trimmed a lot of fruit trees. The people, they really liked it. They liked me. I had married a Mitchell, and there were Mitchells out there. John Mitchell had a store there. Martin Copeland was my wife’s uncle and a member of the Board of Education, so I had a lot of pull and friends there. I could do pretty much what I wanted and I did.

            We had our classroom down in the basement across from our shop. We built the shop while I was there. WE also taught regular shop work. They’d build things for their homes and everywhere else- choose what they wanted to build. We had a good blacksmith shop, too. We taught it to the farmers. They had federal programs back then. They could bring their farm machinery in and teach a class and fix all of their farm machinery. That was a big deal for the farmers. Anything they wanted done they could just bring it in and we’d do it. We also started the canning plant, while I was there, for folks to can their vegetables. We did nearly anything you wanted done. Back then that’s when electricity cam through- rural electrification. Until then there wasn’t any electricity out in the country. We did a lot of electrical wiring, wired their houses and churches and all like that. We had some courses in electricity at Mississippi State, but I hadn’t done any of them before. I just picked it up. There wasn’t much to do. During the war I told D.P. Whitten, the Agriculture teacher from Centre that the two of us should volunteer in the service. They didn’t accept either one of us, but I had a limp for twenty years from falling and breaking an ankle playing tennis.

            I was principal for six months out there. The high school principal had to go in the army. I still taught Agriculture and was principal. They asked me at the end of the year if I still wanted to go on, but I didn’t want to. A few years later, I was even county superintendent.  Frank Stewart was elected state superintendent and he was a good friend of mine and he appointed me. I had run and was elected to the board, so I was appointed superintendent and stayed in that about a year and a half. After that, I left, went to Florida, and worked down there 29 years in Belle Glade. I worked with the migrant student. I got my Master’s degree down in Auburn in Agriculture, but I never taught it after I left Sand Rock.

            I had a dairy on the mountain. I had a fellow in charge of it year round, farmed a little, and did a little milking. But the man quit all of a sudden and went to Tennessee, so I got Tommy Webb to replace him. He was an all ‘round good person and before I even went out there to start milking, I went by a place and told them to order some automatic milkers, so we had milkers from then on. There was a milk truck that cameover there and to the other dairies in the county. We were also the first farmers out there that used artificial insemination. Most of the people hadn’t even heard of it out there. I was the only one that used it.

            I had another farm out there , too-160 acres- where I grew cotton and corn and oats for the dairy. I sold that farm to Melvin Tucker. Then I owned a farm down in Wood’s Bend. I had $5,000 in it and got to talking to a man and he was telling me about a farm he had bought and I said, ‘Well, I’ll sell you mine.’ And I guess, I’d had it for 3 or 4 years so I asked double what I had given for it and boy, he took it right off my hands. I was real sorry I had ever did it but I did. My wife still has a farm up there 400 or nearly 402 acres. Her daddy had that farm down there. He had bought it right after we married in 1938. He paid $13,200 for 400 acres. He kept it and 3 or 4 years later sold $10,000 worth of timber off of it. Her daddy told his daughters not to ever sell that farm down there in Pollards Bend. If you’ll keep it you’ll never go hungry. It’ll always put groceries on your table. She own three quarters of it.

            We started the FFA there at Sand Rock. Yeah, we had the FFA. The first president, he drove a school bus. He was 21 or 22 years old. He wanted to come back. He had just lacked one subject, I think English, so he was just standing around waiting for the bus so I signed him up for Agriculture. His name was Fred something, I’ve forgotten. But he was our first FFA President. We had FFA meetings. It’s a good organization, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I never was rough and tough. I never did fight any when I was growing up, but I meant what I said to those boys. I had a bluff on ‘em. I had a bluff on ‘em.