Heritage welcomes Gee to Morrow Co.

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

While Pres­i­dent Bar­rack Obama spent time in Mans­field on Aug. 1, another pres­i­dent was tour­ing other coun­ties in Ohio, includ­ing Mor­row County. In the after­noon heat of that day, about two dozen peo­ple crowded under a canopy at the farm of Matt and Corinne Gompf on County Road 46.

As the group social­ized in the shade, an SUV turned into the dri­ve­way. A fig­ure emerged from the back seat, wear­ing a red OSU base­ball cap and his sig­na­ture bow tie: Dr. E. Gor­don Gee, pres­i­dent of The Ohio State University.

“Thanks for let­ting us invade your space,” he said as he approached the canvas.

For any of you read­ers won­der­ing why some­one listed in a 2009 issue of “Time” mag­a­zine as one of the top 10 uni­ver­sity pres­i­dents in the United States would visit a farm in the rural area south of Galion, Gee is actu­ally very inter­ested in agriculture.

He explained that he and his team travel through­out Ohio each year and try to visit 44 coun­ties every sum­mer to speak with Ohio farm­ers and busi­ness own­ers, and also just to get out into the com­mu­nity. He joked that one year they attempted to visit all 88, which nearly killed him.

Gee came to the Gompf farm for sev­eral rea­sons. Gompf is a 2001 grad­u­ate of OSU and teaches agri­cul­ture at Mount Gilead High School. He and his wife Corinne run a farm­ing busi­ness called Her­itage Har­vest Farm, part of the Community-Supported Agri­cul­ture pro­gram in which con­sumers can buy a share of the farm to get fresh fruits, veg­eta­bles, eggs and other goods directly from the farmer.

For them, it was the cul­mi­na­tion of an 8-year dream. They came from Rich­wood, Ohio and bought their farm two years ago. They live their with their son, Fletcher (4) and daugh­ter Emery (6 weeks).

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

Dr. E. Gor­don Gee speaks to the Gompf fam­ily at their Mor­row County farm. Matt Gompf holds his son, Fletcher, and Gee holds their daugh­ter, Emery. Corinne looks on.

Gompf said that was true, as Her­itage Har­vest is part of the local food move­ment. “We’re proud to be part of local grow­ers. We’re all work­ing as a team,” he said. On the farm, one can find a vari­ety of crops, includ­ing typ­i­cal items like toma­toes and squash, as well as the more exotic, like Armen­ian cucum­bers. “If it’s dif­fer­ent or strange, we try to grow it!” Gompf said, ges­tur­ing to the sev­eral acres of land they own where Co. Rd. 46 meets Town­ship High­way 49.

They sell their goods at the North­side Farm­ers’ Mar­ket in Galion on Tues­days and at a mar­ket in Mount Gilead on Sat­ur­days. Corinne added that they are cur­rently in a tran­si­tion period for fall plant­ing and also rent space across the road to expand what they can grow. Their farm is not cer­ti­fied as an organic farm, but they do use organic practices.

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

The Gompfs have also focused on uti­liz­ing social net­works as a mar­ket­ing tool in order to reach more cus­tomers. “Face­book is an excel­lent oppor­tu­nity to spread the word on local farm­ing. Our goal is to bring healthy food to the com­mu­nity,” Corinne said.

After Gee’s brief dis­cus­sion with them, he shook hands with all in atten­dance and posed for pic­tures. Sev­eral rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Mor­row County 4-H Exten­sion Office were there, along with Mor­row County Com­mis­sion­ers Tom Harden and Tom Whis­ton. Harden com­mented, “It’s great that we have these young farm­ers who keep mov­ing things forward.”

Gee agreed, stat­ing, “We want young peo­ple farm­ing. You set a stan­dard for oth­ers to follow.”

Some 4-H mem­bers also stopped by. Kyle Hack, pres­i­dent of the Mor­row County chap­ter of 4-H, was very excited to meet Gee. He called that after­noon a once in a life­time opportunity.

Gee social­ized for about an hour, thanked his hosts for hav­ing him and then moved on to the next county. Accord­ing to OSU’s web­site, he over­sees Ohio State’s six cam­puses, 64,000 stu­dents and nearly 40,000 fac­ulty and staff.

For more infor­ma­tion about Her­itage Har­vest, call 419–566-8807 or check out its Face­book page at www.facebook.com/pages/Heritage-Harvest-Farm (make sure it’s the one in Galion, though).

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Aug 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.