The Farm-City Committee of the Pike County Chamber of Commerce was recognized as the Best Farm-City Committee in Division II at the State Farm City luncheon Thursday at the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham.

Division II designates counties with populations less than 35,600.

Randy Hale, committee chair, said Best Farm-City Committee award is given to the committee that does the best job demonstrating to the public the origin of this nation’s food and fiber.

“The award recognizes the committee that recognizes and promotes the important relationship between the rural and urban communities,” he said. “The farming community produces the commodities but the urban community provides the goods and services for our producers. It takes both communities to keep our nation growing.”

The Pike-County Farm City Committee also won first place for its scrapbook and its Farm-City Tour.

Hale accepted the awards on behalf of the Pike County Farm-City Committee that, he said, is made up of 33 talented people who work together to strengthen the partnership between the rural and urban communities.

“We could not have a better or more dedicated committee,” Hale said. “Every person on the committee works hard to achieve our goal.

The Pike County Farm-City Committee has placed first in the state in three of the past 6 years.

“That is quite an accomplishment,” Hale said. “Our committee has won 60 awards up to this year and this is the first year that we have won the scrapbook award.

“We had several outstanding events to highlight, including the our Farm-City tour to the Ag Academy at Goshen High School. The Goshen Ag Academy is, the only agriculture academy in Alabama and that is very impressive. That tour won this year’s first place award.”

Hale said the Farm-City Job Swap between Barry McKnight, the “Voice of the Trojans,” and John Henderson, who runs a logging crew at Sorrell Lumber Company at Saco, was outstanding.

“Outstanding because it was exactly what it was supposed to be – a job swap between people who work in the urban and rural communities,” he said. “We also had an outstanding awards program and dinner. We participated in National Ag Day, the Pike County Fair and the Peanut Butter Festival.”

The committee also hosted a Touch the Tractor event for local schools, Pike Ag Day for all eighth-grade students in the county and Classroom in the Forest for international students at Troy University.

“Dr. Mary Kate Moring did an outstanding job of putting all of our events together in the scrapbook in a creative way,” Hale said. “We are very proud to win this award for the first time. We are honored to win all three awards and to be involved in the partnership between the farming and urban communities.  And, the Pike County Chamber has led the way.”

Attending the State Farm-City luncheon along with Hale were Farm-City Committee members, Tammy Powell, June Flowers, Deborah Huggins-Davis, Emily Rolling and Keith Roling.