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Arkansas Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com

The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. Today we’re talking to Chuck Cross, Turf Management and P.E. teacher at Ashdown High School in Ashdown, Arkansas. Chuck, thanks for joining me.

Chuck Cross: Thank you for having me.

TTZ: Alright, Chuck, we want to talk today and let Arkansas turfgrass managers, members of Arkansas Turfgrass Association know about your turf management program, so let’s start at the beginning of that and tell me a little bit about how the program was started.

CC: With quarantine, it’s been a crazy year in education, so it started… I guess everybody’s phone time has went up since everybody’s been quarantined. It started with just me looking at turfgrass program through Twitter, social media, because I’ve been kind of doing it on my own, with the help of the baseball team and assistant coaches in the last seven years, and I ran upon South Forsythe, Georgia’s Twitter page and just screenshot it and sent it to our superintendent, and I was like, we should think about doing this here at Ashdown, because I know their baseball coach runs it, and it was just an idea. I wanted to start it in the fall of this year, 2021, when we come back to school, and that was in October of last year. And we had a meeting and he was like, “Let’s just start it right now.” And the superintendent, the athletic director, the curriculum director, the principals have been great, the counselors, because they had to change schedules. We just started it on a whim and in November, started it, I kind of just drew from kids that were blended, and then we actually started the class as soon as we came back from Christmas break, in 2021.

TTZ: So did you have a lot of student interest? Is that something maybe that came from sports, were there kids that already knew about turfgrass management as a skill or a job path?

CC: We had some interest over the years. I think probably two or three of my baseball players have gone on to do small lawn businesses. And then we have BWI, which is in Texarkana, it’s a big corporation that provides people with pesticides… anything you want for lawncare and we have a couple guys that work over there. And then we have a bunch of golf courses around. And we’re probably the only grass field around, but kids have been interested for a while, and when I just started telling P.E. kids and started telling baseball and football players, and then some girls too that I was going to have a class, I had a lot of interest and I could only make it… I had to downsize it for the first year. I think next year it’s going to be fairly big.

TTZ: That’s awesome that you’ve gotten a lot of interest. I think a big struggle in the industry is just having people understand that this can be a really great career, and there are levels of it that, like you mentioned, kids can come out of high school and they can have their smaller lawn

businesses, or there are higher education paths to turfgrass management careers, so getting a little bit of exposure this early on and understanding it as the career path is huge in building the next generation, I guess, of turfgrass management. So thinking about that career path and that build up to that job, tell me a little bit about your background. Have you been in turfgrass management or have you always been in education?

CC: I’ve always been in education, I feel like in my second life I’m going to be a golf course superintendent. But I love golf, I try to compete at a lower level, my kids love golf, my wife loves golf. So, you get that background where you love going to a nice golf course. Me and my son play at Texarkana Country Club. It’s traditional, it’s a pretty prestigious course over in Texarkana. Byron Nelson was a club pro there at one time. But I think maybe my interest came from my grandpa, just his yard. He lived close to the ballpark in Arlington, where the Texas Rangers play and he did a great job with his yard and then he took me out there. I just kind of fell in love with grass through a ballpark, baseball, football standpoint. And then playing golf, you get to see the different types of grass and how the guys keep it low and keep it cut and edged and everything. It’s just kinda grown on me. I’m still learning, like Mike Richardson sent us some books from the University of Arkansas and they’ve been awesome to read. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know, like irrigation. I’m pretty good with pesticides and types of grass and how to cut the grass and keep the weeds and fairy rings and stuff like that out of the grass, but there’s a lot that I can learn, to teach kids that they didn’t even know went in to turfgrass.

TTZ: So even though you’ve got all the experience and the background, you’re learning the actual book part of it as well. Where are you getting that support from? Do you guys have FFA, obviously you said Dr. Richardson at University of Arkansas, he’s a great resource. So where does all the information come from as you’re building the program and the kids are learning it too?

CC: I’ve been a part of baseball for probably 20+ years and the support with baseball, the group of baseball coaches are awesome. But, I’m telling you, it doesn’t compare to the turfgrass community because I just started the Twitter and I got with Mike on how we’re going to start this thing and he kind of mentored me, just through email –I’ve never talked to Mike –like it’s all been email, Twitter, and he has been great. The turfgrass community is unreal. I can’t compare it to anybody because nobody is out to get you, they’re all out to help you. And Mike has been great, Karen has been great. And then the superintendent at Texarkana Country Club, Kenny Sawyer, if I need anything I call him, and Brad Essary at Turface, he’s been really good. So I have an outlet to call a bunch of people and get them on the phone for help if I need it, but Karen has tried to hook me up with a bunch more people but we haven’t had the time… we hosted District, State and Regional this year, and she’s been trying to get me to Zoom, Mike too, trying to get me to Zoom with higher end people in the turfgrass community. We haven’t had the time so maybe we can get around to that in the fall. But the hospitality has been amazing, I can kind of compare it to the Arkansas Baseball Coaches Association, but they’re just amazing and I think they want every kid to have an opportunity for jobs and just to grow the turfgrass association.

TTZ: That is one that has also impressed me about the turfgrass community. I haven’t always worked in this exact industry, but in the past three years that I’ve been a part of it, it’s been really impressive how everybody collaborates, works together and shares knowledge… you’re right, it does not feel competitive in the sense of everybody wants everybody to succeed. Yes, maybe you might want golfers to be at your course versus going down the road somewhere else, but it is definitely a great, friendly community. So, let’s shift gears and talk about –what are your students doing? I know that you started the program and got going on the fly, pretty quickly. So what have you had them working on this school year?

CC: We started in the fall with just overseeding the football field with perennial ryegrass and I think that was our first Twitter post. After that, just working on the baseball and softball field –edging, weedeating, fertilizer, pesticides (which I do that on my own, I let them kind of mix it and do that end and then they watch), renovating the mound, renovating the mound for softball. Pretty much everything when it comes to sports turf management. I did take the kids one day to the Conference USA tournament, it was at Texarkana Country Club and they really enjoyed that. We were going to help them, but we felt like we may get in the way a little bit because those guys get out at like four o’clock in the morning and get to work, but this is what I’ve been waiting to tell, I’ve given them all the opportunity to run the real, the fairway mower and the one person who wanted to run it was a ninth-grade girl. I had senior boys, junior boys, and the kid that ran the big fairway mower on all the athletic fields was a ninth-grade girl, Kylie. It was great. You didn’t expect it, but she’s a farm girl, so it was pretty neat to watch her do that. We were trying to get into irrigation, but we may need that for next year, but I’m still learning too, like I was telling you about the books, I wish I would’ve had those 15 years ago. It’s great for me.

TTZ: What are your goals for the future of the program? I know there’s so much you could add and teach, but what are your goals for how many students you have, what they’re actually doing, hands-on, and for yourself, like you said, there’s still always plenty to learn because technology and chemistry changes and evolves every year, so what do you hope for the program in the future?

CC: Let me touch back on the other one first. We did plant a pecan tree for a family that we lost a kid. A pecan tree, and then we’re going to plant some fruit trees, so that’s something that we’re working on. But goals going forward, I think I’m going to have two classes next year, I’m hoping to have Turf 1 and Turf 2. That wasn’t a setback, it took us a while to teach the kids how to work the blower, the weedeater, the mower, and then real mowers you have to do a ton of maintenance on, so that took a lot of time up. So maybe if I can get Turf 1 and then Turf 2, we’re still working on the curriculum to turn it in for maybe a CTE or just related to Agri, but right now it’s going to just have to be a school credit and if we get that, we’ve actually turned it in May 1, but if they approve it or what goes on there, but just to have two different classes where maybe if the underclassmen, we can teach them how to work the equipment and the next year they go into the other one and we’re just ready to roll like paint fields and there’s not a lot of teaching maintenance and safety and all that in the next class. But also, I’ve had three other schools get in contact with me to see how they can get started, and that would be a goal of mine and maybe Mike’s, Karen’s and all the people in turfgrass. Because we’re a small city, we’re close to Texarkana, which is 100,000, but if we could get some schools in Little Rock and in the Fayetteville area where they have more golf courses and they have more fields, we can start putting out kids that take pride in turf management.

TTZ: I know that a lot of times finding the resources in a school system in smaller towns to maintain the fields is a big challenge. I’ve seen some rough looking high school fields as we’ve traveled for sports in my family. I know there’s a program in Virginia that travels to other schools, they basically do a tour of the high schools in the county and they paint their fields for their homecoming games. I love the innovation of high school programs doing that kind of work, so sounds like you’ve got a good group that maybe one day you can go on tour. What’s the hardest part of the program so far?

CC: I say the kids are interested in doing the hands-on work, but maybe teaching them to take pride in what they’re doing and how it’s supposed to look. Like our baseball and softball complex is probably the nicest, I don’t want to say in the whole state because I don’t want to make anybody mad, but it is one of the nicest in the state. We hosted state and we had some teams come in and they’re like, “This is like playing at Baum.” And that’s what we’re trying to do is just trying get kids to understand what it’s supposed to look like. My goal, and it’s a small goal, was to teach them the difference between Bermuda, ryegrass and the different types of weeds, and I think by the end, when we went to the golf tournament, I would point at ramdom grass and they would tell me what it was. A lot of times they got it wrong, but like it’s just to get them to understand because we’re talking about rural kids to what a golf course or baseball field is supposed to look like. That’s the hardest part. They love to work If you can just get your plan out and have them doing something, they’ll get right to work. If you don’t, that’s the hard part too, is they’ll stand around unless you tell them exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. They love to work, they’ll do exactly what you tell them to do, but it’s just planning and then making sure that they’re doing everything right. You don’t want to mess up equipment either. Because you’re always like if I’m off doing something else, I’m worried about Kylie on mower and Johnny on the weed eater. You’ve kind of got to babysit while you’re trying to work too, but it’s a great time. I love watching them. There’s a couple times where I’ve just sat back and let them do exactly what they’ve needed to do. And the pictures that you have, those are the days where I just sit back and watch them work.

TTZ: That’s encouraging to hear that this generation that they’re interested in this type of work and that they want to work and when they have the understanding. I hate to stereotype, but you always hear that younger generations, “Oh they’re lazy and they don’t listen…” I don’t think that’s true, I think we’ve got some good, hard workers and smart kids coming up. I’m glad that they’re getting this option, just understanding that it’s a career. So how can working turf professionals support this program and how can they help you guys with whatever path you may take in the future?

CC: That’s a good question, that’s a long question. There’s so many different ways. I think this summer I’m going to work on contacting a lot of those guys, but they’ve reached out. There’s a few superintendents that have reached out to me, like, “What do you need?” And we could use everything you’re not using. Because I have about 13 right now, but we don’t have –we have one large fairway mower, we don’t have three. We have one weedeater, we have two blowers, so any equipment that they’re not using, even if it’s just slightly broke, because we have a really good maintenance guy here at Ashdown, we could use it. Like if there’s something that you’re going to leave it out in the rain, we want it. Now if it’s valuable to them and they’re going to make money off of it, we want them to do that instead, but like if they have anything just sitting around, we will take it, we will use it somehow, maybe just use the parts off of it. But Zoom, anytime they want to Zoom or we can contact them and they can contact us to Zoom and teach the kids, because those guys know way more. I’m just spreading the word. They know way more than I do. The companies, the big companies could help out a lot, and I know they have –I’ve seen some articles with the other turf management schools. I haven’t got anything out there yet with the big companies that can donate, that it’s not anything out of their pocket to donate. Those guys can help. I’m hoping to get closer to BWI because they can help out, just by maybe tee shirt, anything that will help us promote the program, but they do a great job. Everybody has got in contact with me and said, when we get a new lease, I can give you this… And that’s a couple, like Hot Springs Village and Chenal in Little Rock did a good job trying to find me a bunker rake. So, just anything that they have that is maybe not valuable to them but could be valuable to us, we can take it. Because currently we don’t have a budget, but I think next year we’ll have a small budget where we can do more.

TTZ: I’m going to go back—you mentioned that you have a freshman girl who is mowing and that’s fantastic, I know that’s probably surprising to some of those older boys, that she wanted to do that. Have there been any other surprises along the lines with who your students are and what they do?

CC: Yeah, the majority of our students are baseball player, they’ve been guys that have helped me over the years, so that’s where I drew interest. Because of the school year and us being not an open campus, but they could come and go because of the masks and COVID and stuff, I just wanted to have them something to do and then when I started asking kids, do you want to be in turf management, we started getting girls, we started getting different ethnicities, and our class is very diverse. Next year, I’m hoping to make it even more diverse. But I was talking about the girls –no knock on the guys, but the girls work really, extremely hard. You give them a task and they complete it pretty quick and they do a great job. There’s a ton more kids at Ashdown that want to be in it and I’m hoping that we can get them in it next year so that we can just give them opportunities for good jobs.

TTZ: Absolutely, I think that’s a great observation. I’m starting to notice a lot more diversity in the field, even in the last three years that I’ve been working with turfgrass managers, so I think that’s always great to bring new people and new ideas, and different perspectives into the field. So that’s awesome that you’re starting it at that high school level.

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