The American South
Rodney Scott was six when he realized barbecue was more than a meal. Growing up in small town Hemingway, South Carolina, he watched the grown-ups slow cook hogs it was always a hog, and always whole. Near the end, the men would hoist the pig, which weighed as much as a teenage boy, and turn it over to expose the meat that had been slowly cooking 10 to 12 hours, absorbing the smoke that rose as fat dripped onto the coals. Every time that this hog was flipped over and sauced, people were all over it, Scott said. I m like, this thing is like a magnet. It just draws people in.
Simmons, 39, doesn t fit the farming stereotype.
He wears modern or stylish clothing, and his youthful, warm energy can make anyone feel as if they already know him, just after being introduced.
He believes that the way he dresses and his demeanor help him relate more to people, especially kids in his Duplin County community.
“Whenever you show up at a school as a farmer, and you talk with kids, it s easy to get on their level. It’s so easy to get on their level,” said Simmons, who often invites local children to his farm to teach them about raising livestock and growing crops.