Highland receives Washington County Riverboat Foundation Grant for greenhouse. Photo by Sam McIntosh.

A recently sprouted Highland High School program will be expanding next fall.

The Highland Agriculture program which just completed its first year, will be building a new greenhouse as well as hiring a second instructor to teach new classes in the secondary school. Highland recently received a $47,043 grant from the Washington County Riverboat Foundation to help build this greenhouse. Agriculture Instructor and FFA Advisor Duane Van Winkle comments on the grant, “The grant that Highland has received is to construct a greenhouse, which will be used in the instruction of horticulture but also plant sciences, and I think there probably will be some middle school science applications as well in the greenhouse. So it’s going to open up a lot of doors for our students and the possibilities of what they can do with plants.”

Van Winkle hopes to break ground on the greenhouse this summer. Highland received a $5,000 grant earlier this year for welding equipment, and the program plans to use about 6-7 acres of school-owned land for crop production.