At a young age, Gus Crawford was passionate about engines.
He acquired his first farm tractor at age 7, a 1949 Ferguson T0-20 that features a 4-cylinder Continental engine, large three-spoke steering wheel, wide steel bucket seat and a sweet split front grille in battleship gray.
That tractor – now three-quarters of a century old – is still operational and sits in a garage at his family’s northern Grady County farm near Pocasset.
“Old tractors are kinda my hobby,” he said.
Crawford owns other vintage tractors, including a 1949 Farmall M and a 1950 Farmall C. Another is a classic 1937 McCormick-Deering W-30 equipped with a 4-cylinder distillate (or kerosene) International Harvester engine. It was equipped at the factory with steel wheels but has since been converted to much more user-friendly rubber tires.
Crawford, now 16, is among more than two dozen homeschooled students enrolled at Canadian Valley Technology Center. He said he sometimes tinkers with tractors before farm chores. Schoolwork isn’t far behind for Crawford and three younger siblings who are also homeschooled.
Crawford chose to enroll in CV Tech’s Diesel Technology program, in part because diesel engines are also fascinating to him. The 30-minute drive to the El Reno Campus also provides time to think. Lately, he’s contemplating what he will do once he completes school.
“I think I might want to drive a truck.” he said, “or at least know how to work on them.”
Crawford’s grandfather runs a trucking company and farms on the side in the far west central Oklahoma community of Cheyenne. Farming is always a career option too, he said.
Crawford has another hobby, which grew out of his tractor enthusiasm. A writing assignment his mother gave him a couple years ago for homeschool has expanded into a self-published newsletter that he mails to some subscribers and emails to others – 40 or so in all.
“It’s about the projects I’m working on and what I’ve learned along the way,” he said. “I do newsletters every month. Probably the best writing assignment I’ve ever had. It’s fun when you’re doing something you’re passionate about.”
Diesel Technology is among more than three dozen full-time career training options at CV Tech, which operates campus sites in Chickasha, El Reno and Yukon.
