Table of Contents

 

Features

Agriculture: We Can Sustain It

Socializing Agriculture

Painter of Quiet Places

An Apple a Day

Sustaining the Four Sixes

Hitting Pay Dirt

 

The New Face of Agriculture

The Winds of Change

Avatars Animate Agriculture

Professors in Training

Going Green

Saving Lives One Plan at a Time

 

Protecting Our Food

Quality Cells, Consumer Buys

Tech's New Mate

Micro ZAP

Food Saftey in Mexico

 

Expanding Opportunities

No Bits About It

The Family Farm Fire Man

Around the World with CASNR

Live From Texas Tech

 

Looking Forward

Getting Schooled

A Cotton Senstaion

Living and Learning

More Than a Trophy

 

Online Exclusives

Alumni Lance Barnett: Unpeeled

Agricultural Education and CommunicationDepartment Shines in 2010

CSI: Classroom Soil Investigation

Facing Nature

GINuine

Healing Hooves

Parking and Partying in Style

Raider Red Meats

Standing TALL

Tech Takes Flight

West Texas Cotton Goes Global

 

 

 

 

GINuine

By Clayton Wilson

 

Just off County Road 145, in the small West Texas town of Claytonville, Texas, is Street Community Gin. Street Community Gin normally produces around 30,000 bales of cotton and is run by husband and wife, Barry and SuDe Street. Like many small town gins, Street Community Gin also serves as a local hang out for some of the residents with two owners who are very involved in cotton on both ends of the spectrum.


Barry began working for his father and   uncle when he was ten years old. His family farmed 4,000 acres of land in the Claytonville area. Unlike typical children, Barry saved every penny he earned so that he could afford a college education. When it was time for Barry to go to college the choice was easy-Texas Tech. The Streets come from a long line of Red Raiders.

 

 Both of Barry’s sisters and his brother went to Texas Tech along with most of their     children and SuDe is a third generation Texas Tech graduate.


During summer and Christmas breaks Barry would move back home to work alongside his father and uncle.


“My brother and I would work for them (father and uncle) during summer or Christmas break,” he said. “It’s how I put myself through college.”


After Barry graduated from Texas Tech in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Economics he moved back home and began farming on 320 acres of land. Barry farmed cotton for ten years before buying the Street Community Gin in 1988.


They had bought the gin from a man named Bobby Flick who had owned it for 7 years before selling to the Streets. You can still find Bobby Flick playing dominoes with many other Claytonville locals in the backroom of the Street Community Gin office every  Saturday, if not  every day. Claytonville does not have much to offer, making Street Gin one of the main attractions.


“All Claytonville is, is five or six houses, a church and a gin,” explains Barry


Since Claytonville is so small all of the kids in town go to Kress ISD. Street Gin has been very active in the Kress ISD FFA and 4-H programs helping to pay premiums for students to raise livestock. Once the Streets bought the gin SuDe left her teaching job and began working in the office as co-owner next to her husband Barry. Although SuDe enjoys spending her time working next to Barry she will admit that the most difficult thing she must deal with is that Barry is in charge.


“When we’re here at the gin, he’s the boss,” SuDe said with a chuckle.


When the ginning season is in full swing (October to mid-January) Barry is forced into working long hours including night and weekends. When the gin is in its off-season Barry spends most of his time farming.


“I enjoy cotton,” said Barry, “I like raising cotton.”


Even though SuDe is co-owner, she is not a big fan of the long hours her husband must put in during the ginning season.


“One of the hardest parts about running a gin is that everything in your life is on hold,    football games, funerals, you name it,” said SuDe.


After twenty-two long cotton ginning    seasons the Streets still share the same passion for cotton as they do each other. This is what makes the Streets Genuine.