Aug. 15, 2026
By Jonathan Rich
BrevardBeagle.com
The hot August mid-morning sun was shining down on the lush green pastures behind Brevard High School Saturday morning as a herd of cows slowly and mostly silently made their presence known to visitors at the Carroll Parker Livestock Learning Center for the first time.
Submitted photo
For the cows, it was not their first day on more than 13 acres of farmland and 8 acres of cropland used by students in the school’s Future Farmers of America club to grow corn and hay near the softball field. Some of the cattle had been on the property for more than a decade.
Many of the guests had been down the turn at 55 High School Road to reach a weathered open-air barn where generations of cattle, goats, chickens, dogs and cats had been born, raised and tended to before, but it was the first time that many friends, family members and former students of Carroll Parker had collectively visited the fields, barn and equipment now dedicated to the late farmer, BHS agriculture teacher from 1987-2004, former two-term Transylvania County Commissioner and founding member of the Transylvania Land Trust since he passed away at age 82 in January.
Naturally, they reverently and lovingly told stories about how Carroll Parker loved to work the land and its crops, look after animals, and taught countless others how to do the same.
The first to do so Saturday at the dedication ceremony for the Carrol Parker Livestock Learning Center was Andy VonCannon.
Some in the crowd knew VonCannon as the area’s western region agricultural education coordinator who helps local teachers with curriculum, FFA events and programs. Others were VonCannon’s students during his 11-year tenure as an agriculture teacher at Brevard High.
But Saturday, VonCannon introduced himself to the small crowd sheltering from the sun in the meadow now named for Parker as that ag teacher’s former student teacher at the same high school adjacent to the pastures.
“Today we’re here to officially dedicate the Carroll Parker Livestock Learning Center. That name is important to remember because as students and as learners we know that we can be told something, but whenever we have the opportunity to actually put our hands on it that learning seems to be a little more sticky,” VonCannon told those assembled for the ceremony. “We appreciate the vision that Carroll Parker had to create hands-on learning opportunities right here on this campus.”
The next speaker to discuss Parker’s impact was retired Transylvania County Schools Superintendent Jeff McDaris, who in 1998 became the county school system’s vocational director and met with Parker to determine how to grow the agriculture classes at Brevard High.
“Carroll wanted his students to become invested in this community,” McDaris said. “He wanted them to take what they learned here at school and apply it to all the things and different jobs and careers that they wanted to go into. That was something that he cared very much about and he cared about the impact on the environment … he cared about leadership and talking about those ethics and skills because he believed what students learned in his classes they could apply in their own lives in whatever field they needed.”
Sarah Clayton, the current agriculture teacher at Brevard High who has had Parker’s former position since 2015, echoed those comments as the cows began to mill about in the pasture under the fast-warming sunshine.
“What you see today has been a lot of dirty hands and sweaty palms and kids learning. We put a lot of effort into it, but we couldn’t have done any of it without Carroll,” she said, explaining how Parker was instrumental in helping obtain a $10,000 grant from the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund in 2015 to bring the farmland back to life after a few years of neglect when the previous bovine tenants had been sold and carted away leaving the pastures and cropland unattended.
“Our herd has grown from those heifers, and various grants and fundraisers have enabled us to continue to grow the farm to what it is today,” Clayton said as the cows began to moo in a respectful requiem for the late agriculture teacher. “Carroll was here when they arrived and he visited weekly. I think he was more excited to have cattle back on this land than anyone else. To name this place after him is something really special.”
This summer 12 BHS students worked daily schedules to keep the on-site farm running and prepared six beef cattle and nine goats from the current herd for area livestock competitions while practicing pasture and crop management techniques learned from their classes.
They will continue to feed the farm’s livestock and tend its crops for the next week until classes begin on Aug. 24 and more students join the school’s FFA club to continue this tradition at the livestock learning center which now bears Carroll Parker’s name.