BIBLE GROVE — To his neighbors and friends, retired Clay County farmer Robert Willison may be just another grower, but to a classroom full of Chicago first- and second-grade students, he’s attained celebrity status under the nom de plume of “Farmer Bob.”

    For the last 20 years, Willison has volunteered in the Ag in the Classroom partnership between the Illinois Farm Bureau and inner-city schools, giving his time to teach young kids hailing from urban areas where street smarts trump rural know-how some important lessons about life on the farm. Each year, Willison is paired with a different classroom and becomes a pen pal, writing anecdotes about his farm north of Bible Grove and teaching the students important lessons about where their food comes from in the process.

    And last year, that partnership — with a passle of 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds at Pilgrim Lutheran School in Chicago — produced yields any farmer would boast of.

    By the end of the school year, “Farmer Bob” had become a celebrity of sorts, not just to his young pen pals, but also to students in the rest of the school, where word of his laugh-out-loud jokes, tories about life as a tank gunner in World War II and his famous farm-fresh strawberry milkshake recipe had spread. So when Willison announced his plans to come visit the school in person, the excitement mounted, teacher Karen Huelskoetter recalled Thursday.

    “It wouldn’t have been any more exciting if the world’s greatest rock star had come to town — that was the atmosphere,” she said. “It’s a memory that will never be matched.”

    But for at least two girls from the school, it was matched and even exceeded when they got the chance to visit Willison’s home outside Bible Grove and do some hands-on farming of their own this summer.

    Willison pulled out all the stops when sisters Becca, 7, and Katie Boogert, 9, returned his visit to their school by making a summer pilgrimage to his farm on the northern edge of Clay County. Accompanied by Huelskoetter, who herself comes from a pork farm near Lincoln, the girls learned the ropes of farm life in an afternoon crash course that had them feeding chickens and catfish, digging for potatoes and picking sweet corn and tomatoes — all tasks Willison completes on a regular basis to stock his stand at the Effingham Farmer’s Market.

    It was a working relationship of sorts — the girls got a thrill from doing Willison’s chores, and he got a kick out of them.

    “They had a ball,” he said from behind a mound of potatoes at his farmer’s market stand Friday, a smile on his face betraying the fact he had just as much fun as the girls.

    “You can imagine,” he added, “ Kids in inner-city Chicago — they’ve never seen anything (like the farm).”

    To remedy that, Willison had everything planned out to give the girls a chance to see and do as much as possible, Huelskoetter said.

    “The entire afternoon was choreographed so these girls experienced everything,” she said.

    Of those experiences, Katie said she liked the experience of feeding fish the best.

    “My favorite part of the trip was definitely feeding the fish ‘fish bites’,” she wrote in an e-mail Thursday. “It was fun to watch the fish come up, open their mouths and grab it.”

    The 9-year-old added she was also pleasantly surprised to find the chicken was soft to the touch.

    Her sister Becca, however, preferred the thrill that accompanied a four-wheeler ride with Willison’s son, Cliff.

    “We went really, really fast, and it was really hot that day,” she wrote. “It felt really good because we got wind.”

    Both girls said they especially enjoyed digging up potatoes for Willison’s stand at the market, an experience Huelskoetter recalled recently.

    “When we got there, he had pitchforks and buckets laid out so they could dig pile after pile of potatoes,” she said.

    And dig they did. The pair even posed for a picture with Farmer Bob to show off the fruits of their labor — two big baskets laden with potatoes.

    But the trip wasn’t all work. Sure, the girls did their fair share of digging and picking, but they also did a good amount of looking and learning.

    It was a good thing too, because Katie, in particular, has the unique opportunity this school year to apply those lessons she learned during her day on the farm as the resident farming expert in her new fourth- and fifth-grade classroom, Willison just learned is to be his new assignment through the Farm Bureau program. And he’s taking full advantage of his inside connection to the new class.

    “So far, every time I write, I end with, ‘if you want any more (information), ask Katie’,” he said Friday.

    Both girls, though, get to wear the badge of honor as agriculture experts at their inner-city school after learning some important lessons with Willison. In particular, both girls expressed surprise at seeing some of the equipment it takes to keep a farm running. From the four-wheeler that Becca so enjoyed riding on to the tractor and the 12-row planter the younger Willison demonstrated to much amazement, the day was full of teaching moments about the hard work and investment that comes with farming.

    “The most surprising part of the trip was definitely figuring out all the cool stuff Farmer Bob and his family have, like the four-wheeler and the giant truck — the giant seed barrels,” Katie wrote. “It was also quite surprising to figure out how many crops Farmer Bob has picked for the farmer’s market.”

    Indeed, Willison has planted and picked his fair share of vegetables to supply his “hobby” as a vendor at the market. And just to prove that a farmer’s — even a retired farmer — work is never done, at the end of the girls’ visit, which Willison summed up simply as “a really good day,” the pair headed home with a box of hand-picked sweet corn in tow and their favorite farmer set off for a nearby orchard to pick up peaches for the farmer’s market.

    Amanda King can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 138 or amanda.king@effinghamdailynews.com.