WORKING -- Jerome Hoban

-- Story by Jennifer Kho; photo by Greg Fry

HE IS

Delivering piglets one day, designing part of a brand-new barn the

next.

A DAILY SURPRISE

Jerome Hoban, assistant manager at Centennial Farm at the Orange

County Fairgrounds, has a job that’s hard to describe.

He takes care of animals, plants gardens, helps with the crops and

does various other odd jobs.

“My job is very dynamic,” Hoban said. “I don’t know what I’m going to

be doing from one day to the next. One day I’m harvesting for a food

bank, the next day I’m running to the vet. I have an ability to do lots

of different things, and that’s something you need because this job is

never the same.”

AN EARLY PASSION

The job was a natural choice for Hoban, who was involved with farming

programs like the 4-H Club and FFA when he was a child.

Hoban, who worked summers at the fairgrounds for eight years and has

worked at Centennial Farm full-time for two years, said he still

remembers tagging along with his older sister and her high school

agriculture teacher.

It wasn’t until he entered high school himself that he learned the

history and value of agriculture and developed a “real interest” in it,

however.

“It’s our culture,” Hoban said. “We feed the world and I figured there

would always be a job in agriculture. Everybody’s got to eat.”

He thinks it’s funny when people ask him what he does for a living.

“I have to smile and say I’m a farmer,” Hoban said. “They just don’t

understand how I can live in Orange County and be a farmer. It always

takes a lot of explaining. My family members are attorneys, brokers,

managers and business owners -- nothing like this. But I really like what

I do and I’m afraid that a lot of people don’t.”

FARMER’S HOURS

The hardest part of the job is surviving the long hours during the

Orange County Fair, Hoban said.

Starting three weeks before the fair, he works 10-hour days and they

stretch into 15-hour days a week before the fair. During the fair, they

can peak at 16 hours.

“It’s also exciting and fun, because everybody’s working those hours.

So we feed off each other,” he said.

The farm has become a park to neighboring residents and a popular spot

for elementary school field trips, and Hoban said watching children visit

is the most rewarding part of the job.

“Some of them have never seen a goat or a chicken before,” he said.

“And to see their eyes light up when we pull a carrot from the ground,

and they think you got it from the grocery store, is just something.

“It’s important for them to know where food comes from so they don’t

take it for granted. They need to learn that if we build on all the land,

there will be no place to grow things. They don’t realize it now, but

this is a start and eventually it will start to sink in.”