[249] Dyer County Farm Joins State's Century Farms Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 11, 2010
CONTACT: Caneta Hankins, Center for Historic Preservation, 615-898-2947

DYER COUNTY FARM JOINS STATE’S CENTURY FARMS PROGRAM
104-Year-Old Childress Farm Becomes County’s 24th Designated Century Farm

(MURFREESBORO)—The Childress Farm in Dyer County has been designated as a Tennessee Century Farm, reports Caneta S. Hankins, director of the Century Farms program at the Center for Historic Preservation, which is located on the MTSU campus.
In 1906, J. A. Childress and wife Emma Jane purchased 45.5 acres of land from S. K. P. Holland near Bogota. In 1908, they purchased 11 more acres to total 56.5 acres for their farm. With five children, the family raised corn and cotton.
In 1925, the farm passed to Roy Childress. He and his wife, Mary, and their children, Wilburn, Charles, Emma and Don, continued to raise cotton and corn and also added soybeans cows, swine and mules. The family recalls that Roy “purchased the first fire and wind insurance policy meant to cover structures on a farm” from Farm Bureau in the 1940s.
In 1974, Don became the third-generation owner of the farm that has grown to include 116 acres, 56.5 of which are of the original farm. Don and his wife, Judy Bargery Childress, have lived on the farm since 1963. Don was a 4-H All Star in the 1950s and was a member of the livestock judging team that represented Tennessee at the National Livestock Exhibition in Chicago in 1954.
Working the land today are Don and his sons, Wally and Tony Childress, and grandsons Doug Singleteary and Drew Ross. Crops raised on the Childress Farm include cotton, corn, soybeans, cows and swine.
With the addition of the Childress Farm, Dyer County currently has 24 certified Century Farms, Hankins said.

About the Century Farms Program

The Century Farm Program recognizes the contributions of Tennessee residents who have continuously owned, and kept in production, family land for at least 100 years. Since 1984, the CHP at MTSU has been a leader in the important work of documenting Tennessee’s
agricultural heritage and history through the Tennessee Century Farm Program, and continues to administer this program.
The Tennessee Department of Agriculture began the Tennessee Century Farm Program in 1976 as part of the nation’s bicentennial. Today, the TDA provides a metal outdoor sign, noting either 100, 150 or 200 years of “continuous agricultural production” to Century Farm families.
To be considered for eligibility, a farm must be owned by the same family for at least 100 years; must produce $1,000 revenue annually; must have at least 10 acres of the original farm; and one owner must be a resident of Tennessee.

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“The Century Farmers represent all the farm families of Tennessee,” Hankins said, “and their contributions to the economy, and to the social, cultural and agrarian vitality of the state, both past and present, is immeasurable. Each farm is a Tennessee treasure.”
For more information about the Century Farms Program, please visit its Web site at http://histpres.mtsu.edu/histpres. The Center for Historic Preservation also may be contacted via mail at Box 80, MTSU, Murfreesboro, Tenn., 37132, or by telephone at 615-898-2947.


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• ATTENTION, MEDIA: To interview the farm’s owners or request a jpeg of the farm’s barn for editorial use, please contact the CHP directly at 615-898-2947.



With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.