The Farmer | Whitt Shuford for Claiborne County Mayor

Whitt Shuford didn't learn farming from a textbook, though he has the degree, too.

Whitt Shuford at the wheel of his tractor in a pasture, wearing the Farm Fresh Meat shirt from the farm's meat market

When his uncle passed away in 2009, Whitt took over the family's century farm. Those first years, it was just him: mending fence line by line, clearing fields that hadn't been touched in years, and slowly growing the herd.

Whitt Shuford reaching over the water trough to scratch one of his cattle, the barn behind him

He came home with an Agricultural Economics degree from the University of Tennessee, but he'll be the first to tell you the real education never stops. He's still taking classes, and still learning from the farmers who've been at it their whole lives, usually over a cup of coffee down at the co-op.

The weathered plank barn on the Shuford century farm, a tractor parked alongside it

The farmhouse as it stood before it was renovated into the Whitt's Place meat market, with a deep front porch

That same patience built the market. Whitt started out selling meat from a cooler in the barn. Today, the renovated farmhouse is home to his meat market, where neighbors find beef Whitt raises himself alongside cattle from five local sister farms, every bit of it finished right here on the farm, alongside locally raised pork, chicken, lamb, bison, and a whole lineup of other local products.

Whitt Shuford loading meat into the single glass-door cooler in the barn where Whitt's Place started, beside a hand-lettered sign for farm fresh eggs

Whitt's Place today, the same farmhouse under a painted sign, with corn shocks, a hay bale, and pumpkins banked across the front

Farmers understand property taxes. The bill comes due on ground you're trying to hold onto and hand down, in a good year and a bad one alike, and it never asks which kind you had. That's why Whitt has championed keeping farmland taxes low, and it's where he starts on anybody else's bill too: every dollar the county spends came off somebody's table first.

Whitt Shuford and two of his employees behind the meat counter at Whitt's Place, cuts wrapped in butcher paper on the case

Fixing what's broken. Working with what you've got. Answering to your neighbors. That's how Whitt has run his farm for 17 years, and it's exactly how he'll serve as County Mayor.

More of Whitt's story in the weeks ahead.

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