By Valerie Sliker Photo: Spencer Smith, Allen Williams
After more than thirty years at Wagener Salley High School, Mr. Allen Williams has retired. An honorary luncheon was served Sunday as hundreds came to wish him well, thank him for his work and tell stories of how he influenced lives. Visit the Aiken Standard for the full story.
Williams is a living example of his personal FFA motto: Learning to Do, Doing to Learn, Earning to Live, Living to Serve. Williams is one of many in a long line of men of character and integrity who have permanently influenced many lives through both the FFA and the vocational agriculture departments at WSHS. Roy Warner preceded Spencer Smith as the WSHS vocational ag teacher and was a mentor to Smith. "The agriculture program is a means of teaching rural leadership," claims Smith, to create good rural and state leaders alike. As Smith credits Warner, Williams credits Smith, claiming that his success is due to Smith's strong foundation.
The banter between Smith and Williams reflects a life-long mentorship of equal respect. Smith jokes, "The Lord sent a man to replace me that did a better job than me because he can teach girls. I only had four or five years with girls. Mrs. Sara Gantt touched a lot of girls lives with Home Economics." In the recent years, it is the girls who have taken on much of the FFA leadership roles. Williams has adapted to the changes of society. Home Ec has evolved into family life sciences. Williams says that after a lot of thinking, he determined that "the most important thing in education is to teach a child a variety of experiences so that he or she can adapt into an ever changing world." Change and faith are common denominators in the lives of these men as in the lives of farmers. Both Williams and Ronnie Cook, a Wagener farmer, have said that there is no industry in the world that requires more faith than that of the farmer.
Smith recalls his job in the Ag Program at WSHS included being the town blacksmith. "Back then," Smith recalls, "farmers counted on me. I would be interrupted (in class) to go fix a combine part, weld something together and get the combine running again." The job Williams filled had changed a good bit since Smith's prime. A constantly changing technological environment and educational environment is necessary for agriculture to support an explosive population growth.
A decade ago, The Spencer C. Smith scholarship was created to provide two scholarships to the most qualified senior. This is a life-long scholarship that will remain long after the retirement of these men, due in large part to the investments the Young Farmers have made. The Wagener Salley Young Farmers is an educational program that is currently in a re-building period.
Mr. Ethan Busbee, a Wagener resident, is being considered to replace Williams. Busbee, a recent graduate of Clemson University, is one of Williams' former students. Busbee's father, Mr. Doug Busbee, was Williams' first FFA President at WSHS.