Area man returns to his roots

ROCKFORD - Vaughn Davis' career took him around the world, but the seventh-generation farmer has returned to his Western Ohio roots to start Schoolhouse Farms, which specializes in different crops and a new way to take them to market.

"I was born in Celina in 1966," he said. After graduating from Troy High School in 1984, he attended Vanderbilt University, where he earned a degree in chemical engineering and began a career that spanned the globe.

"I've worked around the world, been in 50 states, 27 countries, seven continents," he said. But he dreamed of coming back to Western Ohio.

"I've always loved it, always. I just decided this is what I wanted to do, and I'm making it happen," Davis said.

Davis operates Schoolhouse Farms out of a Civil War-era schoolhouse on Ross Road, east of Rockford. His crops include sunflowers, several varieties of popcorn and grains used for distilling bourbon and rye. He has a few other ideas for crops that can be sold directly into the retail market.

"We want to get tapped for more of the retail market and increase our revenue per acre. That's the goal here, and to have a little fun along the way," he smiled.

Davis explained that as an engineer, he worked to try to make things more efficiently.

"This took my love of growing things with how to process it and put the two together and it's actually a lot of fun," he said.

The line of gourmet popcorn features kernels that pop up white with centers of red, blue, purple or yellow. He sells sunflowers hulled and dehulled usually as birdseed, but he plans to begin roasting in the near future to sell the seeds in three varieties.

This is the end of Davis' second sunflower growing season, but popcorn has been growing on Schoolhouse Farms acres for about a decade.

Davis also plans to sell virgin cold-pressed sunflower oil with the help of a friend in Minnesota, who would do the pressing.
  This year, Davis also plans to grow some stone-ground cornmeal and grits to sell to an outlet in North Carolina, as well as some grains for making denatured alcohol such as bourbon and rye. Future plans includes microwave popcorn and floral sunflowers with red, white, orange, yellow and bicolored flowers.

"Sunflowers, when they are blooming, they are beautiful. We have people call us and ask if they can come take pictures here," Davis noted.

Schoolhouse products are available online at schoolhouse-farms.com, and at a retail operation run by a friend north of Van Wert. Davis said he would like to find an outlet in Celina. He plans to open a few hours in the old Frysinger School building, which houses his office. The one-room schoolhouse, which was built by 1862 by Dublin Township is on land Davis' father, Lowell, purchased in 1975. His great-grandmother Cecil Rickard attended school there in the early 20th century.

The products are all non-GMO, and the packaging bears the GPS coordinates of where the products were grown.

Schoolhouse Farms operates on about 600 acres. Davis stated that is enough land to grow all that he wants - for now.

"I wouldn't mind growing a few crops in Maine, probably do a lavender operation up there to use for lavender essential oil and a few other things I'm thinking about up there," he said. That move is not in the near future, as all of his farm equipment is in Ohio.

Davis said his focus has remained on one goal.

"As we develop more and more end products, the goal would be to make sure that at least one major ingredient comes from our farm," he said.

He noted his big challenge is to find more markets for his products. From his seat in the one-room schoolhouse amid acres of cropland, Davis can look around an know his work makes him happy.

"I love to grow things," he said. "I think it's just in my blood."

Davis and his wife live in Maine. Their oldest son, Andrew, is 22 and a landscape designer in Oregon. His youngest, Justin is 17 and is a senior in high school at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics.