10 Questions with Austin Blackford

10 Q s with austin blackford

Science teacher

Reporting by Grace Gould & Hanna Boughanem

1

Why did you decide to start teaching?

My wife brought it up, but I had never thought of it throughout my entire life, and I thought that it sounded like so much fun. You get 150 students each year who all have their own individual stories, and you get to form relationships with them.

2What is your most prized possession? My wedding ring. 4

What came first: the chicken or the egg?

I’m too chicken to answer that.

8

If you could dye your hair any color, what would you choose?

Frosted tips.

3

You’re known as the teacher who asks a “question of the day.” Where do you find the ideas for your signs?

Some of them I just thought of. For most of them I Googled ‘stupid questions,’ and sometimes students will submit the questions on the warm-up.

5What’s your favorite daily

What’s the opposite of a table? It’s silly and question from this year? 9 there’s not a correct answer.

6

What actor would play you in a movie about your life? What is your favorite kind of food?

I really like tacos. I’m originally from Texas, so I’m used to good Mexican or Tex-Mex food. The disappointing thing about living up here is that you don’t get quite as many of those types of places, especially breakfast tacos.

It’s kind of a controversial figure, but I’ve had multiple students this year who told me I look like Ben Shapiro.

7

Who has been your biggest inspiration?

My high school’s track and cross country coach. He was one of the first teachers I had that was very relatable and made school fun to go to.

10

If you could do anything without consequences, what would you do?

I think it would be interesting to take off and run or swim just to see how far I can go. It’s like a video game.

OlD Mahoney has a Farm

A look into a senior’s life outside the city

MAYA AMMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Waking up at the crack of dawn, driving almost two hours, simply to be met with the smell of manure. This is a weekly occurrence for senior Will Mahoney. Longmeadow Farm is a cattle farm outside of Winchester, Virginia, owned by his family.

“Longmeadow is different from a dairy farm because we do not milk our cows,” Will said. “We raise the cows and [eventually have to] send them to the slaughterhouse.”

Nestled at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the farm includes over 100 acres of open pasture and 75 acres of forested woodland. Will and his family have been the proud owners of the farm for over 200 years.

“During the Confederacy, Southerners turned their money into Confederate money,” Will said. “My family didn’t invest in it, so they had real money by the end of the war. When everyone else was dirt broke, my family had money to spend, so they were able to buy the farm.”

Four years ago, Will’s family had to take on more responsibility at the farm.

“We started working at the farm more frequently after my dad passed away, and my mom was not capable of staying there alone,” Will’s mom, Anne Mahoney, said.

Will spends as many weekends as he can at the farm helping his family.

“I do whatever needs to be done, whether that’s repairing the barn or the fences, moving fences to set the cows in a different field or running the cows to the chute to give them medicine,” Will said.

While Will’s increased responsibility at the farm has been challenging, he has found ways to fulfill his family’s needs while having fun, often inviting his friends along for the ride. Visiting the Mahoney farm is not exactly a peaceful getaway for Will’s friends, though—all hands must be on deck.

“Two of my friends, Nathaniel Hughes and Sam Snyder, have been a huge help, especially over COVID,” Will said. “They don’t get paid. I hope they have a good time, but my dad definitely puts them to work.”

and on his farm there were some cows —

Pumpkin, the Mahoney family’s favorite cow, grazes among the other Black Angus cows in the pasture at their farm in Winchester, Virginia. The farm has been passed down through several generations.

Despite the work they have to put in, Will’s friends keep returning to the farm.

“I actually find the farm very relaxing and fun. There’s so much more to do out there than we can usually do [in McLean],” Snyder said.

When the time for work is over, Mahoney and his friends don’t have a problem finding something fun to do at the farm.

“The North Fork of the Shenandoah River runs near the farm, so you can go fishing, swimming and kayaking,” Will said.

As the farm has been passed down through generations, every member of the family has made their own unique contributions.

“I’m building a log cabin by hand,” said Will’s brother, sophomore Nathan Mahoney. “I’m just about finished with the foundation, then it’s time to get the logs. Hopefully it’ll be done sometime this year.”

Although life on the farm can consist of a lot of grueling work, it also has many rewarding moments.

“Every cow has its own personality,” Will said. “That’s the best part of working with the cows. Sometimes it’s more actionpacked, sometimes it’s a little dangerous.”

One member of the herd manages to grab a bit more attention than the others.

“Our cows are Black Angus, so they’re all black,” Will said. “One year, though, we had a bull that had some kind of recessive gene in it, so we got an orange cow. My mom named it Pumpkin and she’s become the family pet.”

The farm is a meaningful aspect of the Mahoneys’ lives where they have spent a lot of time working together as a family. Everything that happens at Longmeadow has been passed down through the family for generations, making it all the more memorable.

“Longmeadow is so important to me because I know that my family’s been there for so long,” Anne said. “[The fact] that my parents did the same work on the same ground, along with my grandparents and great-grandparents, is what makes it special.”