Kim Clark

Holton grad Clark returns as Royal Valley ag teacher

Agriculture is an important field to Kim Clark, a 2001 graduate of Holton High School who took the lessons that she learned in agricultural classes at HHS and used them to grow an agricultural curriculum and a Future Farmers of America program at Royal Valley High School.

And as an ag teacher at RVHS, Clark is hopeful that some of her students can return to the Jackson County community after high school and give back to a community that’s given so much to them — just as she did, and continues to do.

“This is just a great place to be,” she said. “It’s great to be able to help build up our county.”

Clark, daughter of Gene and the late Debbie Clark, learned her love and respect for agriculture while growing up in a non-agricultural home in the country, participating in 4-H programs for 12 years. She started with the Pleasant Valley Rustlers, then moved to the fledgling Rockin’ Rainbows club before settling in with the Straight Arrows in her high school years.

“My parents were some of my leaders in 4-H, and my dad’s family was really active in 4-H growing up,” she said. “So even though we didn’t live on a farm, I showed sheep for 12 years in 4-H, I had hogs for a couple of years and we always had a really big garden.”

In her freshman year at HHS, Clark hadn’t enrolled in any ag classes, but was encouraged to do so in her sophomore year after helping a friend at the Jackson County Fair — and the agriculture classes taught by Jason Larison helped her to realize what she wanted to do with her life.

“By my sophomore year of high school, I knew I wanted to be an ag teacher,” she said. “I did everything I could, I took advantage of every opportunity that Mr. Larison presented to me.”

A year after graduating from HHS, Clark was elected the state FFA treasurer, and she balanced serving as a state FFA representative with her continuing education at Kansas State University, where she graduated in 2005 with a bachelor of science degree in agricultural education. After that, she took on her first teaching job as an ag teacher in Marysville.

“I just wanted to teach somewhere in Kansas,” she said. “I didn’t have a specific location. I do like northeast Kansas, but I knew that coming out my first couple years, I may not be able to be in this area, and so I just wanted to find a job and start teaching.”

For more on this story, please log in to your holtonrecorder.net account and select “July 20, 2022” under “E-Editions.”

The Holton Recorder

109 W. Fourth St.
Holton, KS 66436
Phone: 785-364-3141
 

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