By using both brains and brawn, A&M Consolidated High School senior Porter Lemons plans to advocate for the agriculture industry through real estate and local construction.
“My dad is a real estate broker in town, so I grew up around building houses and construction my whole life,” Lemons said. “I enjoy the atmosphere of construction, of accomplishing something that helps a lot of people. I want to help by developing the city, helping certain areas, and my ag mechanics practicum really helped in linking them [construction and agriculture] together. I want to bring in something new to the agriculture industry that hasn’t been done before.”
With changes in the local real estate landscape, Robert Myatt, A&M Consolidated agriculture science teacher, said that the agriculture industry needs innovative leaders in the future like Lemons.
“With plots of land shrinking in size as urban sprawl is happening, you have to be more efficient in land use,” Myatt said. “You have to be better with how you use the land or what you’re putting on it, and I can see Porter doing well in that arena.”
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Lemons did not grow up raising animals or working the land, but when he joined FFA and started taking agriculture classes in high school, he quickly learned that there is a lot more to agriculture than he thought. He learned that programs such as ag mechanics can make agriculture more accessible.
“What’s great is I can do it every day — I don’t have to worry about driving somewhere to feed animals,” Lemons said. “Every day I walk into a classroom, and I have two hours where I can go to build projects with real down-to-earth people.”
It’s not just about learning welding and woodworking in ag mechanics, but Lemons said the team-building environment in 4-H and FFA is where he learned to work well with others, gain leadership and networking skills, and problem solve while working toward a common goal.
“People in ag mechanics, including seniors when I was younger, have always been really helpful, kind and always really willing to help if there is something I didn’t know how to do,” Lemons said. “And Mr. Myatt, I give him a lot of the credit. He’s helped me develop as a person. He’s like a second father to me. He’s helped me get through problems and showed me how to talk to people, how to branch out.”
One particular project that took a great deal of problem-solving and skill was a 10-foot, 1,000-pound conference table that Lemons built with the help of Myatt and fellow classmates. Resources for the table were donated by Lemons’ father, and the table was donated to the church Lemons attends, Holy Cross Lutheran Church.
“It had really crazy angles — that was the best project I’ve built so far,” Lemons said. “When I first started, I thought, ‘How am I going to do this? It’s crazy. But after talking to people and working through it, we were able to accomplish it, and it looks great.”
Myatt recalls when they initially started working on the table, they had to consider how they were going to get a massive table down a hallway, through a door and then put together on-site without a welder. But with Lemons’ common sense and book smarts, everything came together, Myatt said.
“Porter is naturally talented,” Myatt said. “He is very easy to work with in that he comes to me with ideas, and it’s not very difficult to get it from an idea to an actual finished product because he is a very good, deep thinker. He thinks through the processes while he is designing projects.”
Lemons is also a state qualifier in land judging for FFA, a Junior Leadership Brazos graduate and a National Honor Society member. He plans on attending Texas A&M University where he will major in agribusiness.
His goals for the future include giving back to the community by helping young people get involved in 4-H and FFA programs. He wants to pass on the positive impact these programs have had on him, he said.