These days the official name is Southeast Georgia Research and Education Center. It is part of the University System of Georgia. It is located just north of Midville right along Highway 56. It is referred to as the Midville Station among the employees of the University System, but in Midville, it has always simply been called “The Experiment Station”.
I’ve always been told that other counties in the area were trying to get a station built in their respective counties. The Burke County Board of Commissioners donated approximately 460 acres to The University System and the Midville Station opened in 1951. Orien Brooks was the first Superintendent, and he came to Midville from the station located in Blairsville.
There are eight stations spread out over the State of Georgia. Each area of our state has differences in crops, livestock and growing conditions. These research stations document valuable information for all the growers across our great state. I have always considered these stations a valuable source of information for anybody involved in agriculture in Georgia.
I never knew Mr. Brooks, but I have heard a multitude of stories about him. He was reputed as very knowledgeable and was also known to be a fine man. Mr. Hogarth Sandeford was a local farmer and Agri-businessman and told me many stories of Mr. Brooks. After the death of Mr. Hogarth’s father, he returned home to start farming.
Mr. Hogarth’s mother was operating a dairy, but Mr. Hogarth wanted to farm. He told me he was working in Atlanta but came back home to get started farming. Mr. Hogarth always told me Mr. Brooks had a wealth of knowledge about farming. Mr. Hogarth also told me that when he first came back home, he would beat Mr. Brooks to work because he had questions to ask.
So, since the very beginning, the Experiment Station has been a valuable asset to our area and the state as a whole. At one time the Midville Station included row crops, a dairy, a broiler chicken operation as well as hogs and cows. The station was showing other avenues of income from the land besides row crop farming for people in our area.
Again, the station has always, in my opinion, been a great asset to Midville, Burke County and the State of Georgia. I can’t think of any other occupation where you can go and get real-world knowledge from a facility right out the back door. The station has been a guiding light for farmers for many years.
Charles Perry became the superintendent after Mr. Brooks. Mr. Charles was quite a colorful character to say the least. Mr. Charles and his sweet wife, Miss Anne, lived at the station and raised a family there. I grew up around all of their children and still have a relationship with them today
I went to church with the whole Perry family and Miss Anne taught Sunday School for years. Bless her, we were most likely not the best of students, but through her love and her patience, she did the best she could with us in spite of ourselves. I have many, many fond memories of her and how good she was to us all.
Mr. Charles could be, well he could be Charles, but I loved him dearly as long as he was alive. He was an extremely intelligent man and ran the station well. I remember, fondly, one afternoon Mr. Charles, Mr. Hogarth and myself went to a church meeting in Tattnall County.
We rode in Mr. Charles’s Cadillac with the two older men up front and I was sitting in the backseat. I leaned forward between the front seat so i could hear every word. Some of what was discussed is certainly not worth repeating, but the other words spoken that day I will never forget.
I had great respect for both of those men in that front seat and despite our age differences, there I sat soaking up every word. It was just us, nobody else around and I enjoyed one of the greatest conversations thus far in my life. They both revealed themselves to me in ways they never had before and I was proud to be there.
Bob McNeil became the interim superintendent and although he served in that capacity for a number of years, he was never named superintendent. Somewhere around 2004 the university “mothballed” the station. The land was there, but not much was going, there wasn’t a staff although the scientists were still conducting some test plots.
Around 2007 it was reported that Dean Scott Angle was coming to Midville to shut the station down for good. It seemed as if local interest had waned and the decision had been made. Ralph Sandeford, local farmer and Agri-businessman went to work in an effort to save the station.
Fifty years later, Mr. Hogarth’s son, Ralph, was going to bat for the institution that had helped his father when he was just getting started in farming. I was there the day of the meeting. Through the efforts of Ralph Sandeford and others, people had come out of the woodwork to show support for the station.
The Dean got up to speak and said openly that he had come to close the station, but after seeing the support had changed his mind about closing it for good. Our whole area showed up for something that has meant so much to Midville for so many years. I was very thankful at that moment
In 2007, a man born and raised just down the road from the station, a man that grew up farming and that already worked for the University System had applied for the Superintendent job. Anthony Black became the superintendent for the Experiment Station. He was back home, only a few miles from where he was raised.
Anthony is as knowledgeable about farming as any man I have ever known. His mental acuteness about farming is beyond measure, but beyond that his love for agriculture. He has a heart for it; it was placed in his DNA long before he came into this world.
Tom Black was Anthony’s grandfather, and he was also a sibling to my beloved “Bigma’’, Susie Black Womack. That farming gene, working the land, runs deep in the blood of the Black family. Anthony is my cousin, but he is also my friend, and I have great respect for him. He and his wife, Dawn, have raised a family at the station as well.
I am thankful for many things about Midville with The Experiment Station being on the top of that list. The station and the people that worked there have always been a part of my life. It’s as much a part of Midville as anything and may The Experiment Station live on forever.
