[121] Hardin County Farm Joins State's Century Farms Program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 2, 2009
CONTACT: Caneta Hankins, 615-898-2947

HARDIN COUNTY FARM JOINS STATE’S CENTURY FARMS PROGRAM
100-Year-Old Weatherington Farm Becomes County’s 3rd Century Farm

(MURFREESBORO)—The Weatherington Farm in Hardin 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.
A little more than 100 years ago, on July 21, 1909, B. R. Weatherington and Betty Jane Hill Weatherington founded a 21-acre farm northeast of Milledgeville. With their 10 children, the Weatheringtons raised cotton, corn, cattle and hay.
Today, the farm of just more than 100 acres, which includes a house built in the late 19th century and a 1940s barn, is owned by Allene Weatherington, the wife of Barney O. Weatherington, whose parents founded the farm. Daughter, Carolyn W. Roberts is the third generation to call the farm home. The land, worked by Essary Farms, produces corn and soybeans.
Hankins said the Weatherington Farm is the third Century Farm to be certified in Hardin County.

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.
“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, 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.