From hatching eggs to making sales, students at Smith Valley Schools are learning the entire process of how to prepare turkeys for Thanksgiving.
Wyatt Berrington, student business manager, says, "First, we have to catch the turkeys, weigh them, then we tag them, then after we catch them, we tag them to keep track of their numbers, take them over to the slaughter station, they get put down."
The turkeys are then given to the next student who dips the turkey in a barrel of water.
Brysen Walston, a sophomore, says, "So right now I'm dunking the turkey in hot water, not quite boiling water, you want to stay around 150 degrees. The hot water is supposed to loosen the feathers."
With the turkey warm and the feathers loose, it is then passed on to a machine everyone calls "the Mother Plucker."
Students then pick off the rest of the feathers and move it to the next station, where they get their hands really dirty.
Katelynn Dublanc, a freshman, says, "I'm just gutting the turkey, cleaning out all the organs, and then I'll send it off to the cleaners, and then they'll clean anything I did not get."
Smith Valley Schools offers multiple programs like this, where students are given full responsibility to learn how to run and grow a business.
Principal Duane Mattice explains, "They're responsible for purchasing all the materials, for making sure the process is completed. In this particular case, the birds get the food, they get their water, they grow."
Once all 64 turkeys are done and properly prepared, they are then stowed away in the freezer, where all the locals can come out and buy them straight from their school.
Principal Mattice says if all goes well, the student managing the whole operation gets to keep 60% of the profit.
Berrington says, "I feel very lucky. Our school's unique, and it's just a great opportunity to learn everything you can do in agriculture."
"This really brings out the culture we do here, the things we support," Walston says.
Dublanc says, "This is actually my second year helping out with the turkey's and I plan on doing more. Maybe not just turkeys, maybe I'll plan on doing pigs later on."
