Be Our Guest in the Great Northwest

Glenn Kimbrell- Owner of Alamance Sportsman Club - 134 acre farm converted to shooting preserve

Mac Baldwin - marketing box and specialty beef

Professional Development Tours - $5.00 per person All tours will depart the Hawthorne at approximately 12 noon and return at approximately 5:30 pm. A box lunch will be provided on the bus. Buses will be air conditioned with restrooms.

TOUR NUMBER 1: Richard Childress Racing and Patterson Farm.
The tour will start at the Richard Childress Racing Museum in Welcome, North Carolina, where you will see the history of NASCAR racing over the past 35 years. Racing greats like Tim Richmond, Alan Kulwicki, Davy Allison, Adam Petty, Harry Grant, and of course the late, great Dale Earnhardt, have all raced for Richard Childress. You will see cars that have won no less than six championships, winning engines, special event cars, and more. An added bonus is the wildlife and conservation gallery filled with Richard's hunting trophies. (www.rcrracing.com)

Next stop will be the Patterson Family Farm in southwestern Rowan County. The Patterson Family Farm was started in 1919 and today raises 300 acres of tomatoes, 25 acres of strawberries, and 40 acres of pumpkins. In addition, they are an agri-tourism farm that hosts special agri-cultural tours for schools and other groups. Tours of the Patterson Farm include the tomato processing plant, farm fields, and the farm market. (www.pattersonfarminc.com)

TOUR NUMBER 2: Popcorn factory, Rag Apple Winery, and alternative watering systems for beef cattle
Shallowford Farms Popcorn Factory produces all types of popcorn from the regular flavor to exotic flavors such as green apple, raspberry, and butter rum. Here you will an opportunity to see how popcorn is processed from the time it leaves the storage bin to when it is bagged and packed for shipping. In addition to the factory, there is a gift shop with toy tractors, various types and flavors of popcorn, and decorative tins filled with popcorn. (www.shallowfordfarms.com)

Rag Apple Lassie Winery is owned by Frank and Lenna Hobson. It was named after a champion dairy calf Frank exhibited in his teenage years. When his tobacco allotment was cut in half, Frank decided to diversify and converted 26 acres of tobacco land into a vineyard. In 2003 they bottled 3500 cases and expect to double that production in 2004. Their goal is to bottle 10,000 cases per year. (www.ragapplelassie.com)

Alternative Watering Systems. Two farms will be visited for this segment. One is the David Bledsoe Farm which uses solar power to move water for his beef herd. This new system is working well and as a result, David has seen increased weaning weights on his calves. David's farm has been featured in the Progressive Farmer. The other farm is the Van Whitaker Farm. This farm utilizes a gravity system to move water. Even though he has not fenced his cattle out of the stream, he has seen marked improvement in streambank stability as a result of moving his watering point away from the creek.

TOUR NUMBER 3: Piedmont Carolina Nursery, Replacements Ltd., and Homeland Creamery (Bowman Dairy)
This tour takes you across central Guilford County to the southern most edge. Piedmont Carolina Nursery has over 30 acres of container grown woody ornamentals, deciduous flowering shrubs, trees, vines, groundcovers and perennials. They specialize in unusual, hard to find plants as well as tried and true favorites. (www.piedmontcarolina.com)

The next stop is Replacements Ltd, a stop designed with the ladies in mind. In 1970, Bob Page began collecting china and crystal as a weekend hobby. As friends learned of his pastime, they asked him be on the lookout for particular patterns that they had lost or broken. As time went on, his hobby became a business and in 1981, he left his job as a North Carolina State Auditor and founded Replacements Ltd. Today, there are over 10 million pieces of china, crystal, and silver in the 225,000 square foot warehouse. The tour will take you from receiving, to cataloging 100,000 pieces/week, to shipping, and to restoration. (www.replacements.com)

We will then travel through the country to Bowman's Dairy in the Southern Part of Guilford County. Bowman Dairy is a family dairy that has recently started bottling their own milk and producing ice cream. This is a sixth generation farm on the same homestead that has been in operation since 1930. It started out as a 6 cow dairy in the 1930's and is now a 200+ cow dairy. (www.HomelandCreamery.com)