Pete Stickney & Margie Levine

Working with about 1/3 of the student body each semester, Pete Stickney (Farm Manager) and Margie Levine (Assistant Farm Manager) run Putney’s farm. Their efforts provide the school with 15-20% of its food.

Margie: People ask me, “What does it matter if a student knows how to milk a cow or plant a carrot seed?” True, most of our students won’t become farmers. They may never grow a single vegetable once they leave here. But they will eat every day. By teaching them in the Farm Program we’re educating them in a “round ball” sort of way about the world and what they take from it. We’re giving them the satisfaction of eating vegetables that they have personally helped along. We’re giving them the opportunity to manage animals and to create bonds with, for example, calves that they see born and later might feed, groom, walk and, one day, milk. At the very least we’re creating educated consumers. When our graduates go to the grocery store, they know where food comes from and what it took to get it to the store.

Pete: It was never Carmelita Hinton’s idea that the Putney School would train farmers. Her idea was to give students an experience of real life that contributes to their sustenance. When we grow broccoli, we’re planting and harvesting on a level that matches the scale of a small, commercial operation. Dairy farming, too, is on that scale. At 35 cows, our herd is more than big enough to provide the school with milk; we sell the excess. Students do virtually all of the cow tending. A few students are queasy, at first, about the smell in the barn. But, in the end, they learn that the smell is benign. And every year there is a handful of seniors who feel genuinely sad that the farming part of their life is probably about to end.

Pete: 6th generation Vermont dairy farmer.
Margie: B.A. Elementary Education (certified teacher), Keene State College.