Gilmer County’s UGA Extension Office said goodbye to an agriculture extension agent, while also welcoming a new 4-H agent, last week.
Ashley Hoppers, who’s been the ag extension agent for Gilmer and Fannin County since 2019, completed her last day in that role Friday, Aug. 4.
Hoppers, who holds a master’s degree in horticulture with an emphasis in fruit tree production, is now the production manager at Mercier Orchards in Blue Ridge. She previously managed a fruit tree farm in Alabama, where she also began working for the extension service.
Hoppers said working in this community and getting to know its farmers and those who make it special has been a life-changing experience. “I’ve always said that I feel like hanging out with farmers is going to make your life longer. It’s been great for me not only professionally, but also personally,” she said.
Hoppers said she’ll still be working with local fruit growers in some respect.
“Saying goodbye doesn’t feel that great, but it really isn’t goodbye. It’s working together in a different way. I’ll still be able to work with our apple producers in Gilmer because it’s such a tight-knit community, and we all help each other. That’s one of the things I love about this community is that you’re not farming alone,” she added.
The local extension office announced last week that Gilmer County resident Joshua Aaron will now lead the office’s 4-H program.
Aaron, a 2014 Gilmer High School graduate, grew up involved with farming.
His family has run Aaron Family Orchards, a longtime local apple house, for many years. He was a 4-H livestock showman and FFA member while a student in Gilmer County schools. Aaron now holds an associate’s degree from Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College and a bachelor’s degree in agriculture education from UGA.
“We had the orchard, grew chickens for Tyson and my grandparents on both sides had cattle,” Aaron said. “When I was in 4-H and FFA, my main enterprise was raising pigs and growing vegetables. I restarted the family cattle herd about a year and a half ago.”
Aaron’s first day as the county’s 4-H agent will be Sept. 1, said Nancy Adams, Gilmer’s Family and Consumer Sciences agent.
“We’re really excited about being able to provide somebody with a local, longstanding relationship to this area,” said Adams. “He’s somebody who’s already linked to loving this community and a product of the (local) school system. The bulk of his time will be spent at schools and other organizations with youth.”
As the search for a new ag agent commences, Adams said the office is well equipped to continue answering agriculture-related questions and processing samples for lab testing.
“It’s business as normal. With my agribusiness and horticulture background and Josh’s agriculture background, we should be able to help them in-house,” she said. “We’re still collecting water, soil, chicken litter and bacteria samples and sending samples off to the lab. When a homeowner or commercial grower comes in with a question, we reach out to the specialists at UGA anyway, but our internal system is set up to where we can still (handle it) through this county office.”
Adams said the hiring process for an extension agent normally takes several months. The ag agent position will continue to be split between Gilmer and Fannin.
“I know UGA is going to be motivated to get someone hired sooner rather than later. It’s usually about a four-month process, and we expect a lot of interested applicants,” Adams said.