It’s often said that what you get out of college is only as great as what you put in. For Linc Thomas, senior horticulture major in Colorado State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences, it’s been a fruitful journey.
Originally from North Carolina, the soon-to-be-grad recently received a number of accolades, including the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture’s Outstanding Senior Award and the college’s Charles N. Shepardson Student Leadership Award. With even the briefest look at the impact he’s had on the college, it becomes abundantly clear why he’s ending his tenure at CSU with praise.
Thomas began his extracurricular activities as a member of the CSU Horticulture Club under the supervision of professors Harrison Hughes, Jim Klett and Josh Craver. During his time with the club, Linc was chosen to be a volunteer Greenhouse Manager for two semesters. As a manager, he was a reliable tender of the Horticulture Club’s plants, and was a leader in organizing the club’s plant sales.
Linc also tapped his enthusiasm for horticulture and education while involved with Ag Adventure, a program about which he is very passionate.
“Volunteering for Ag Adventure is the closest thing to combining youth mentorship and agriculture I have ever been a part of, and it makes me so happy to leave this campus knowing that the program lives on,” he said.
“Volunteering for Ag Adventure is the closest thing to combining youth mentorship and agriculture I have ever been a part of, and it makes me so happy to leave this campus knowing that the program lives on.”
— Lincoln Thomas, outstanding grad
Perhaps his longest-lasting legacy, which impacts the entire campus, would be his creation of the Everybody Eats Garden in March 2019. Thomas negotiated support from both the CSU Horticulture Club and the CSU Zero Waste team to launch the garden, located behind the CSU Horticulture Center south of the main campus. The garden is managed by the Horticulture Club, whose members can complete internships working there, but it’s more than a simple project
It’s called the Everybody Eats Garden because it feeds into the FREEdge program, a student-run initiative created in 2017 that stocks a refrigerator in Aggie Village with fresh produce that students facing food insecurity can access at no cost.
“The most important thing I did at CSU has to be the relationships,” notes Thomas. “Everything I did at CSU stemmed from the relationships that I built, whether it be with professors or students or other individuals — it really came down to the relationships that I had.”
While the pandemic has put some of his plans for the immediate future on hold, Thomas said he will continue to pursue a career in science writing after graduation.
