DAFVM Spotlight Employee: Sam Tackitt
Sam Tackitt
Sam Tackitt likes to be outside and spends his days managing the day-to-day operations of the Pontotoc Ridge-Flatwoods Branch Experiment Station. As the farm supervisor, Tackitt works with the station’s researchers to manage their research plots.
In addition to maintaining the station, Tackitt helps plant and harvest the research plots and other crops grown on the farm.
“Our primary focus is sweet potato research, but we also have the major row crops -- corn, cotton and soybeans,” Tackitt said. “In the winter we raise our sweet potato slips in the greenhouses and sell them to a local farmer, who grows the foundation seed. Sweet potato farming is a more complicated process than people think.”
Over the years, Tackitt has come to appreciate working with people as much as with crops.
“We’ve had a tremendous line of department heads who have been extremely good to the north Mississippi experiment stations,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed working with the leaders we’ve had, and that’s one of the most rewarding parts of my job.”
When he’s not working, Tackitt stays busy with multiple interests, including his Harley Davidson motorcycle.
“My main hobby now is rebuilding classic cars and trucks,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of tournament bass fishing over the years. My wife and I are in a motorcycle club that travels all over the country. We’re planning a trip out West next summer for two weeks, and we go to the Smokey Mountains every year.”
Editor's note: The Division of Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine Spotlight Employee profiles are provided by the Office of Agricultural Communications at Mississippi State. For more information, please click here.
