Methods to pay your kids” way through college: Savings plan, prepaid tuition, scholarships, grants, student loans … peaches?
Sarah Ballenger”s family has stumbled upon a brilliant means of putting more than five children through college. For a period each summer, the Ethelsville, Ala., family loads up several trucks with Chilton County peaches around 6 a.m., then the convoy drives 40 minutes — depending on how big the load of peaches is — West to Starkville, Columbus and West Point. The drivers arrive at their predetermined locations, hop out with a folding chair, take a seat and wait for the tuition to start rolling in.
“It”s put four kids in my family through college,” said Ballenger, the youngest of six children. “And at least five of our friends have worked with us to help pay for college.”
Sarah doesn”t count herself among the four who completed college; she only completed a few semesters. But the 22-year-old knows where the money”s at if she decides to finish.
It”s been this way every year for the past 15 years for the Ballenger clan. Jenny was the first. Her family owned a peach orchard back in the day, but those trees died before she was college-aged. When she began contemplating ways to pay her way through Mississippi State University, her parents suggested she take a load of peaches from a family friend”s farm and sell them in Starkville. And a tradition was born.
Since 1997, minus a year here and there, the Ballengers have been coming back to Starkville. Even when a particular Ballenger kid wasn”t attending MSU, he or she would still return to Starkville, the most lucrative city in the Golden Triangle, each year.
The Ballengers are back early this year. Sarah”s uncle, Raymond Winter, has a stand set up on North Jackson Street just north of Womack Street. Her brother, Rivers, is on Highway 12 across from Giggleswick. In Columbus, peach stands are perched near Lowe”s on Military Road and Rite Aid at the corner of Highway 45 and 18th Avenue North. In West Point they”re next to Hardee”s on Highway 45.
It”s not unusual for the family to sell 70-80 baskets of peaches a day. Prices range from $4-14. With five locations and five trucks, you can do the math, but Ballenger said gas prices are eating into family”s profits this year.
She”s not worried, though. Ballenger says people have looked forward to buying peaches and other produce from the family”s stands each year since ”98. Customers will come back so often that they get emotionally attached to whoever is manning their preferred site.
“It”s funny how people remember so well the people who have sold,” said Ballenger. “When I came to Starkville one year, a family friend named Byron had sold all year at one spot and really got to know the customers. I”m there one day and people start asking me ”What are you doing here? Where”s Byron?””
People still remember Jenny and Mike, who are now married, from back when they dated in college. And they still ask Sarah how Jenny and Mike are doing.
Raymond Winters, Ballenger”s uncle, is manning the North Jackson location in Starkville. He”s there from early in the morning to mid-afternoon Tuesday through Friday chatting with customers.
“There are a lot of interesting people here in Starkville. It”s a different culture,” he said Wednesday, standing next to his pickup truck full of peaches.
In case you”re wondering, Winters chomps an average of three to four peaches a day in addition to the peach smoothies his brother-in-law Charlie makes for the family each evening, and his favorite: peach ice cream.
The peach business has been good to the Ballengers since starting with one stand in front of a barber shop on University Drive in Starkville in 1997. Now with five locations, there are no immediate plans to expand, but there are no plans to stop, either. Sarah says the family is extremely grateful to all the business and land owners who have allowed them to set up shop on private property, but the family is always on the lookout for prime real estate opportunities.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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