Hello! My name is Emmily Woods, and I’m originally from Castlewood, Virginia. I’m the VCE summer intern for Wise County this year, and I am beyond excited to have this opportunity. Growing up so close to Wise County, I have many fond memories of Clinch River Days, fishing trips to Oxbow Lake, and hiking various trails around the county. After spending some time away for college, it feels good to be back and working in my own community.

As I mentioned, I’ve spent the last four years as a student at Virginia Tech. A few weeks ago, I graduated with my Bachelor’s in Animal and Poultry Sciences, with minors in Agribusiness Management and Entrepreneurship as well as Creative Writing. My focus was primarily in the production and business side of animal agriculture, and I followed a particular emphasis in equine studies. I had the privilege to be a member of the collegiate horse judging team, as well as an officer for the Virginia Tech chapter of Young Farmers

I’ve spent my previous summers as a camp counselor at Camp Jacob in Clintwood, Virginia, and as a 4-H summer staff member at the SWVA 4-H center, but this year I am looking forward to spending my summer with the Wise County Extension office! I’m particularly interested in getting to know and work with the people and programs of Grow Appalachia. As you may have guessed with my animal science background, I don’t have much of a formal education in crops in gardening. I have, however, grown up helping my family with their garden each year. We’ve grown just about everything from corn, beans, peas, cucumbers, squash, peppers – you name it, we’ve probably grown it at some point (this also includes some failed attempts at watermelons and peanuts several years ago, but I can’t say that we didn’t give it our best shot!). These experiences have been some of my favorite memories growing up, and I’m excited to see everything that I can learn from working through this program and the others at the Extension office. Hopefully, I will be able to meet some new people face to face. If not, I can’t wait to get to know everyone virtually. Until next time!