Wanting his own classroom

Editor's note: This is one in a series of feature stories on graduates from high schools in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News readership area.

Tanner Anderson, 19, can’t get through the halls at school without saying “hi” to everyone. He’s known to keep a box of Fruit Gushers in his locker, but they aren’t really for him, more for handing out to his friends and classmates.

At a-box-a-week pace, the Garfield teen may be down to the last box of his high school tenure.

Anderson starts his last week at Garfield-Palouse High School this week and he says he will miss everything except the teriyaki beef dippers.

This fall Anderson is making the roughly 25-mile ride up the road to the University of Idaho to pursue a career as an agriculture teacher.

While he will miss GPHS and those he’s grown close with, he said he’s excited about the opportunity to make new relationships in Moscow.

Anderson, who grew up on a family farm outside Garfield that produces wheat, garbanzos, lentils and occasionally barley, said he enjoys working on the farm and will continue to work there but his older brother will be the one to take it over full time.

There’s no love lost. Anderson is excited to pursue a career in teaching.

The Garfield teen can’t pinpoint the moment he realized he had a passion for teaching but said his time with ag teacher Mike Patrick is when he determined it was a possible career path for him.

“Being a farmer, I always had a relationship with ag, he showed me it’s not just growing wheat,” Anderson said. “It really made me want to teach other kids about it.”

Anderson’s work with Future Farmers of America helped seal the teaching deal.

Anderson recalled a visit with Garfield-Palouse first-graders when FFA members taught them how to grow wheat.

“The kids were really into it.” he said.

Anderson said he wants to teach to make students aware of food shortages, where their food comes from and what’s in it. Plus, “he likes to help people.”

That helping people is also something he feels on the farm, noting he’s “helping the world by farming it.”

Anderson said two of his ag instructors, Megan Colle and Mark Sawyer, graduated from UI and recommended the ag program to him.

Anderson said he is excited a top notch program is close. He said he plans to camp at Laird Park, ride his motorcycle and fish in his regular spots throughout the Palouse on the weekends.

Josh Babcock can be reached at (208) 883-4638, or by email to jbabcock@dnews.com.