Maysville Elementary student receives $500 scholarship

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Five lucky fifth grade students within Ohio were chosen to receive a $500 dollar scholarship because of their participation in the “Agriculture is Cool” Program.

For the 8th year, this program was held by the Ohio State Fair, in partnership with Ohio Department of Agriculture, Ohio Farm Bureau and Ohio’s agricultural commodity groups. Mark Bruce, Communications Director at Ohio Department of Agriculture, said there are a lot of jobs here in Muskingum County that are tied to agriculture.

“It’s a way to get youth all around the state to learn more about agriculture and just how important the agricultural industry is to Ohio. It’s the state’s largest industry, counts for $124 billion and 1 out of every 8 jobs. So it’s a huge part of what we are in Ohio,” Bruce said.

The idea is for students to go around the Ohio State Fair and write an essay about their experience. Hannah Slack is a Maysville Elementary School student and her essay was one of the five chosen.

“I talked about how you could use wool, like you could use wool for kitchen scrubbers and sweaters and I talked about how agriculture is important to everybody and animals also. Agriculture helps animals get food and agriculture helps us with our everyday life and animals also,” Slack said.

To find more information about next year’s fair, you can go to the Ohio State Fair website.