Gene Ragan, 11, and “Jerry,” Reserve Grand Champion, 1935 Albany, GA, Fat Cattle Show. Jerry was the first of a number of champion steers, grand and reserve, that resulted in Gene being named the GA 4-H Meat Animal Champion, a member of the Master 4-H Club and later elected its president. In Chapter I, we gave sort of an outline as to how we got started and reached graduation at the University of Georgia College of Agriculture. Now, let’s go back, include a few details and take it a bit further.

It seems that little could have had a greater impact or given me more of the basic essentials I would need later in life than those acquired at Abraham Badlwin Agricultural College (ABAC). More on this later.

Why ABAC in the first place? How did that get started? The seed was planted to put a country boy on the track he followed most of his life that could generally be described as Agriculture -- the greatest advancement of the most important industry in the history of mankind.

Gene Ragan, 20, astride Rose, a Morgan mare at the Coastal Plains Experiment Station, Tifton, GA, the summer of 1944, prior to his senior year at the University of Georgia, where he majored in animal husbandry. He also did summer work in a Texas cattle show herd, all a part of training in his chosen field. Photo was made at his junior college alma mater, Abraham Baldwin, (ABAC) where he was named “Alumnus of Distinction” in 2008. It all started with the first of anything that a little country boy ever owned, a small Hereford calf to be named Jerry that needed all the essentials required to be a big calf.

The little boy, barely 10, saw Jerry the first time when he paused while playing in the barn to look outside. The first trip to a bank and the first money he ever borrowed came when he got a 4-H Club loan to pay $25, or .10 cents a pound for the little 250 pound calf.

Of course, the little boy knew nothing about what was really taking place. He just knew he had a responsibility, and his loving parents made sure he carried it out by feeding, training, and otherwise taking care of Jerry.

In Jerry was embodied the whole thing, the beginning that evolved into a lifetime at what the little boy became. With Jerry came the County Agricultural Agent, membership in the 4-H Club and without the boy’s knowledge an introduction into the Land Grant College System.

Jerry was later named Reserve Grand Champion at the Albany, Georgia Fat Cattle Show. The little boy, now barely 11, cried when his calf was sold at auction. Much more than just a beef calf, Jerry was the little boy’s pet, his friend of nearly a year. But, mainly, something big had started.

Jerry was the first of a number of champions that resulted in my being named the Georgia 4-H Meat Animal Champion, a trip to Chicago, induction into the Master 4-H Club, and later to be named as its president while a young County Extension Agent.

All of this plus the work of a County Agent and Home Demonstration Agent not only in 4-H, but with the family sparked a country boy’s dream to go to college and become a county agricultural agent.

ABAC was the chosen place, located near the Coastal Plains Experiment Stations, where plenty of work was available, as it turned out in the dairy. I became a “dairy boy.” We did the work before and after classes, weekends included, a total of about 40 hours a week at .25 cents per hour and never saw the money. It went to the college to pay our way for the first two years in the University of Georgia system.

The Dairy Boys worked hard, and we applied ourselves in the classroom. It was some of the best training a youngster could ever get. To say the least, we were diligent. While there I broke my collarbone, wore a sling and could only use one hand for work. It takes both hands to do dairy work, so until I healed I got a job doing rough painting for .10 cents per hour. But at least I got to stay in school. Did I say there was very little money for me?

Our professors were great: Dr. Pete Donaldson told us profanity denoted an inability to express yourself and that communication could be effective without using the “big words” that some employed to impress.

Animal Scientist, J.N. Leckie said in effect vitamins were all right, but you needed lots of ham and eggs to go with them. The math professor, a coach whose name I can’t remember, would challenge us to work a problem saying, “I’ll bet you this piece of Alabama money you can’t do it.”

The war was on, and the faculty put up $25, five dollars for the team of five with the best time on an obstacle course. My team won. Later in one of those night sessions, early rising Dairy Boys never attended, a physical type asked “how that Ragan boy” could beat him. The answer was he’s up running while you are asleep. I was hopping on and off the running board of a milk truck running and placing bottles of milk on porches and picking up empty bottles at homes and the carrying crates of milk in restaurants seven mornings a week and then working afternoons in the dairy, rain or shine, hot or cold.

The Dairy Boys at ABAC were so tough we would take cold showers to prove it.

One of the great moments of my life came many years later in 2008 when I received the ABAC Distinguished Alumnus Award, the highest honor bestowed on an alumnus by the Alumni Association.

No one will ever appreciate a placed called ABAC anymore than a country boy with practically no money who could realize a dream by being able to get a job to earn his first two years and get started on his college education.

ABAC may have indeed been the “Chosen Place.”