{"id":375,"date":"2019-09-30T18:03:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T18:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/?p=375"},"modified":"2020-01-23T20:40:40","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T20:40:40","slug":"ut-institute-of-agriculture-celebrates-ag-day-before-tennessee-georgia-football-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/ut-institute-of-agriculture-celebrates-ag-day-before-tennessee-georgia-football-game\/","title":{"rendered":"UT Institute of Agriculture Celebrates Ag Day Before Tennessee-Georgia Football Game"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue Will Attend as a Special Guest\u200b<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. \u2013 Smokey is expected to howl at the Ag Day celebration hosted by the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. Come \u201csing\u201d with him and learn about the importance of agriculture to the state of Tennessee and beyond.

Ag Day is where farming, tailgating and Big Orange spirit come together. This year\u2019s event is Saturday, October 5, at the Brehm Animal Science Building. The start time is 2:30 p.m., a few hours before kickoff of the Tennessee-Georgia game.\u00a0

Ag Day is free to the public, and includes music, farm animals, free popcorn and ice cream, a delicious ribeye meal for purchase, an interactive social media wall, an insect petting zoo, departmental exhibits, and, of course, a visit from Vol mascot Smokey. People attending Ag Day may also receive a free, clear bag with a UTIA logo that can be taken inside Neyland Stadium.

This year UTIA celebrates agriculture with a theme of \u201cOur Future\u2019s So Bright \u2026\u201d You can get free sunglasses and purchase a t-shirt as part of this theme.\u00a0

The UTIA campus will welcome a special guest to the event, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. Students\u00a0of the Herbert College of Agriculture and the College of Veterinary Medicine will meet\u00a0with\u00a0Perdue during his campus visit to\u00a0share their experiences at UTIA along with their career goals.\u00a0Perdue also attended Ag Day in 2017.\u00a0

\u201cWe like to think of ourselves as one big family at the Institute, and \u2018Ag Day\u2019 is when we welcome our family home,\u201d says Tim Cross, UTIA senior vice-president and senior vice chancellor. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased to have Secretary Perdue back with us, along with so many great friends and supporters. It\u2019s our day to celebrate the Institute and agriculture across Tennessee, and we encourage everyone to come join us.\u201d\u00a0

The celebration will include recognition the 2019 Tennessee Farmer of the Year, Jerry Ray of Tullahoma, who will represent the state October 15 at the Sunbelt Ag Expo in Moultrie, Georgia, in the Swisher Sweets\/Sunbelt Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Year competition. Ray farms 1,900 acres in Moore County, where he raises corn, wheat, soybeans, hay and lots of cattle \u2014 more than 1,400 head of stocker cattle.\u00a0

Ag Day will also include the presentation of the Institute\u2019s Meritorious Service Award to longtime 4-H staffer Ruth Henderson-McQueen. McQueen served nearly 30 years with UT Extension, first as an agent in Sequatchie County, and later in the state office on the UTIA campus. McQueen developed international programming for 4-H, and was involved in 4-H Roundup and Congress, as well as mentoring and training 4-H agents. Today McQueen continues to serve as a 4-H volunteer and supporter.

Ag Day will also serve as a send-off to UTIA\u2019s Horizon Award winner for 2019. Seiche Genger, DVM, is a 2014 graduate of the UT College of Veterinary Medicine, and now the East Asia technical manager for Hy-Line International, an American-owned multi-national company that raises and sells egg-laying chickens. Genger will soon move to Thailand to supervise the company\u2019s poultry operations throughout Asia and Australia. Genger works in veterinary care and food safety for Hy-Line.\u00a0\u00a0

Through its mission of research, teaching and extension, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions.\u00a0 utia-dev.tennessee.edu<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue Will Attend as a Special Guest\u200b KNOXVILLE, Tenn. \u2013 Smokey is expected to howl at the Ag Day celebration hosted by the University of\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"articletype":[],"institute":[16],"topics":[],"entities":[40],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","institute-news-release","entities-utia"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 04:06:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"articletype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articletype?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"institute","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institute?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"entities","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entities?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}