Dudley Farm State Park may be closed
By Rachael Anne Ryals
Herald Staff Writer

NEWBERRY – State budget cuts may force the closing of Dudley Farm in Newberry next year.

Dudley Farm Historic State Park is a working farm that transports visitors to the 1800s, when the first Dudleys starting farming the land. Three generations of Dudleys lived on the farm before it was donated to the Florida Park Service in 1983.

But an effort to reduce the state budget by 10 percent for the 2009-2010 budget year could change all that.

All state agencies, including the Florida Park Service, were asked to submit a proposed budget with a 10-percent reduction, according to Jessica Kemper, information director for the Florida Park Service.

The parks department proposed, among other things, to “temporarily” close 19 state parks that were expensive to operate and poorly attended.

Dudley Farm is on that list.

Kemper said the parks chosen were done so “to protect staff and reduce the amount of impact to visitors.”

The closing of the parks on the list must first be approved by Governor Charlie Crist and then must be debated and passed by the state Legislative during the upcoming legislative session.

The park closings, if approved, would be effective July 1, 2009 and would be effective until the Florida economy improves, Kemper said.

But those closely involved with the park said that temporarily closing Dudley Farm would be “detrimental” to the health of the park.

Nancy McIntosh, a former president of the Friends of Dudley Farm, a non-profit group with hundreds of volunteers who work at the park, said that closing the farm would ruin the whole point of the farm.

She said that as far as she knows, the land has been continuously farmed since the Dudleys first started in the 1800s.

“If you close it, you lose all of that continuity,” she said.

If the state closes the park next year, then the fields could lay dormant for the first time in many decades.

McIntosh said that she felt Dudley Farm, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, should not be included on the list for lack of attendance because the site is historic and should not have too many visitors anyway.

“You can't have too much traffic on a historic site without interfering with the authenticity,” she said.

The farm is a working farm with 18 buildings, including the family farmhouse with original furnishings, an 1880s kitchen outbuilding, a general store and post office, and a functional cane syrup complex.

Park staff dress in period clothing and perform daily chores that include raising crops and tending to livestock. The farm holds annual events such as Plow Days and Cane Day where the public can watch the fields be plowed and syrup be made.

Jim Dresser, president of Friends of Dudley Farm, said that closing the park, even temporarily, would be harmful to the park and to the community.

The state plans to keep each park dormant but will have one “caretaker” at each park.

But Dresser said Dudley Farm needs more than on person.

Having just one person to keep up with the vast farm, even if it is closed and not being farmed, would be impossible, Dresser said.

“There is an awful lot of things that are not going to be done,” he said.

More importantly, Dresser said, the community would lose out on a valuable teaching tool for the area's children.

“Kids today don't really know where their food comes from,” Dresser said. “Aside from the loss to the general public, the educational value to the thousands of school kids who attend each year would be pretty significant.”

Dresser said the Friends of Dudley Farm plans to start a letter writing campaign to help keep Dudley Farm open.

State Rep. Debbie Boyd said that she is aware that Dudley Farm has been placed on the list to potentially be closed and she has contacted The Florida Park Service for more information.

Boyd said she will be watching the issue closely, but she has no proposal in front of her and the process is in the early stages.

But keeping the local economy in mind during budget cuts is always an important factor that should not be overlooked, Boyd said.

“We need to factor in how much benefit these parks have for our community,” Boyd said. “They do generate revenue for our communities.”

* For more information on the letter writing campaign, e-mail Jim Dresser at:

jim@dresser.ws

* To contact the Florida Park Services directly, call 850-245-2157.

* To contact State Rep. Debbie Boyd, call 386-454-5407.