Josie Pickens grew up on an Ohio farm that has been in her family for more than 200 years.

Now an executive secretary in the School of Nursing, Pickens’ face lights up when she thinks about the farm.

“I’d spend the academic year with mom, and then every summer was on the farm with dad and grandma and grandpa,” Pickens says. “I was always just running around — looking for cow bones, sneaking into cow pastures, finding kittens in the barn. That sort of thing. It was all very country.”

Located a few miles from the Ohio River, near the northern panhandle of West Virginia, the farm’s surrounding land is very rural, with gravel roads and little development. Much of the area was once dominated by steel mills and coal mining, and recently has been converting to oil and gas exploration.

“I never lived there as an adult until after Cincinnati,” Pickens says, referring to her time serving with AmeriCorps. “The work force mainly relies on labor jobs. For me, it was mostly home for holidays, visiting my aunt and uncle, grandparents, brother and dad. … They all live there (on the farm).”

Through Pickens’ experiences studying abroad in Brazil and working at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, D.C., she developed a passion for international interaction and teaching. But her heart was still back on the farm.

Pickens returned there in 2011, vowing to make the most of her time while she figured out her next move after completing her assignment with AmeriCorps.

Pickens got busy. She started a blog to share findings with the local community and created a still-active Facebook page to promote activities and venues in Martins Ferry, Ohio, and other nearby towns. Earlier this year, she created videos and a website to document the work that her father did alongside local librarians and  records offices, tracing the farm’s history back to 1808 and documenting the passing down of the farm.

From Pickens’ fifth-great-grandmother, who was a nurse in the Revolutionary War, to
her brother, who currently raises Black Angus cattle on the farm, she and her father uncovered a rich history of thriving folk and family-centric tradition.

“It’s an official Bicentennial Farm, certified by the Ohio Department of Agriculture,” Pickens says.

Today at the School of Nursing, Pickens tends to administrative duties and supports the associate dean of undergraduate studies with organizational jobs, informational reports and assessments. In her free time she volunteers as communications coordinator for Michigan Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).

The family farm has not been forgotten. Pickens makes every effort to share her unique history and experience with anyone interested.

Through her part-time coursework to earn a master’s degree from Eastern Michigan University, she has formed connections with many international students and endeavored to bring them to the Pickens family farm.  

“Let me show you rural America,” she tells them. She wants to make sure they, and others over recent years, have a well-rounded picture of the United States. “There’s more to our country than New York, L.A. and Chicago.”

The first time she brought friends to the Ohio Valley, they slept in tents among the hay fields of the Pickens farm. The second time, Pickens and her visitors slept in a 100-year-old house on the farm.

When asked about her time in Ann Arbor, Pickens says, “The past two years at the University of Michigan have taught me a lot about higher education and I look forward to someday being an educator.”

In the future, Pickens hopes to teach international students. For now, though, she is thriving and happy. Pickens is following her dreams.

“Everything seems to have just fallen into place.”

Tags:

• Staff Spotlight