By Brad Haire
University of Georgia

They’ve been called to duty and are being deployed to Iraq next
month. Their mission is simple: Provide Georgia soldiers a
familiar taste of home. It’s “Operation Boiled Peanuts.”

Georgia 4-H’ers across the state are mobilizing to raise money
for a statewide project to package and send boiled peanuts to
Iraq to the 4,300 soldiers of the Georgia National Guard’s 48th
Brigade.

Homegrown hankering

The seed of the project was planted when Clark Rountree, 21, a
specialist with the 48th, called his mother, Patricia Anderson,
earlier this month. The Wilcox County, Ga., native told her to
tell Rex Bulloch he had a hankering for his favorite homegrown
snack and wanted a few to share with his comrades in Iraq.

“Anything Clark and those boys want, and I can get it, I’m going
to get it done,” said Bulloch, 57, a Wilcox County peanut farmer
for 35 years. Rountree worked on Bulloch’s farm before being
sent to Iraq earlier this year. He knew that from now until
November plenty of fresh, Georgia peanuts would be harvested.

Bulloch figured a few bags of peanuts wouldn’t do. He wanted to
get enough for the entire brigade. Family-owned Hardy Farms in
Hawkinsville, Ga., specializes in ready-to-eat boiled peanuts in
pouches and cut Bulloch a good deal. But the cost was still
around $6,000.

“Folks told me I should ask around for some help,” Bulloch said
in a phone interview Monday.

Statewide help

On Aug. 10, he called on his county University of Georgia
Cooperative Extension office.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you let 4-H help with that,’” said Suzanne
Keene, a Wilcox County 4-H program assistant. “I thought this
would be a great opportunity for Georgia 4-H and the (UGA)
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences to send a
farm product unique to Georgia and let the troops know we
support them.”

She called the 4-H state office in Athens, and “Operation Boiled
Peanuts” was launched. “It has ballooned and blossomed from
there,” she said.

The Georgia 4-H Foundation fronted the $6,000 to keep the
soldiers from waiting any longer.

Now, 2 tons of Georgia boiled peanuts, about 4,800 bags from
Hardy Farms with Georgia 4-H stickers proudly stamped on them,
are staged and ready to be sent to the men and women of the 48th
Brigade around Sept. 10, Bulloch said.

From collecting donations to organizing events, each county 4-H
club is doing something different to raise money, said Laura
Perry Johnson, the southwest district 4-H program development
coordinator.

To give a donation, make out a check to the Georgia 4-H
Foundation and send it to 304 Hoke Smith Annex, University of
Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Write “Georgia 4-H: Operation Boiled
Peanuts” on the envelope. Or go to your county UGA Extension
office.

“We’d like to raise enough money to do it more than once,” Keene
said. “Maybe send them something once a month.”

Special thanks

“Clark is like one of mine,” Bulloch said. “I’ll do anything for
him to make it a little easier. He promised he’d be careful,
keep his head down and come home. That’s what I’m expecting from
him and the rest of them.”

Bulloch hasn’t spoken with Rountree. But he’s heard that the
soldiers know the Georgia delicacy is on the way. They’ve seen
some TV news stories about it.

But Bulloch already has been personally thanked. Jason
Henderson, another Wilcox County native and a 48th Brigade
soldier, was injured in Iraq and was back home last week.

“He thanked me and asked if he could give me a hug for the men
of the 48th,” Bulloch said.

(Brad Haire is a news editor with the University of Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)