Delta Democrat Times (Greenville, MS)
Ag Pilot Rosters Growing from DSU Program
BY Jay Fletcher
The Agricultural Aviation Certification Ceremony at Delta State University’s Hanger at the Cleveland airport was packed with the families of 11 new agriculture pilots.
Two of the graduates were from Washington County.
Allen Jornagen of Leland and Anthony Dufie of Glen Allen received a certificate of completion from the Ag Aviation program and are ready to take the controls of an Air Tractor.
Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, the guest speaker for the ceremony, said that these young men were joining a profession that consists of 2% of the population that feeds the other 98% of the nation.
“It makes sense that we should be training these Ag Pilots here in the Mississippi Delta,” Hyde-Smith said. “We have the most fertile soil than anywhere else in the world.”
Hyde-Smith said because of the passion of people like Ike Brunetti, an aerial applicator and business owner, Sheila Millican, the Aerial Applicator Program Coordinator, retired Col. Brad MacNealy the Interim Chair of Commercial Aviation, and so many others, the program, which is in its third year, with its second class of graduates is a success that they are considering expanding to train even more young ag pilots.
Jornagen was already employed with an air service in Hollandale, and plans to return there,
Dufie said he is headed to Louisiana, but as soon as something opens up back in Washington County he’ll be back.
Both of the young men from Washington County said the most fun they had was flying the Air tractor AT-802 but, at the same moment, the scariest part was also flying the AT-802.
Jornagen described it this way, “You’re 15 feet off the ground going 150 mph, you’re exhilarated and petrified at the same moment, but there is no time to feel any of that when you’re doing it, only afterward do you understand.”
The program got its start from a conversation Hyde-Smith had with Brunetti and McNealy in 2019 when she told the men she wanted to start an ag pilot program at DSU.
DSU wasn’t an agriculture school, but it did have the state's only commercial pilot program.
The profession of Ag pilot was dying with less than 3,000 pilots working and an average age of 52, and the demand for commercial and private pilots at an all-time high, this graduating class was all hired before they even finished training.
“These men are going all over the country to work, and the demand is so great, I want this program to be the biggest and best ag pilot training program in the country,” Hyde-Smith said, “I am so proud of it, and the wonderful people that are making it happen.”