Therrell Pierce says his life could have taken other paths, but he is glad his took him down the path of becoming a cotton ginner.

“My father was an electrician, so I had an electrical background,” says Pierce, who received the Southern Cotton Ginner of the Year Award at the Southern Cotton Ginners Association’s annual awards banquet in Memphis, Tenn. “That’s how I got started in the ginning business.”

Much of Pierce’s career has been spent as manager of the McNutt Gin Co., Inc., in Boyce, La. Boyce is in the Red River Valley north of Alexandria, an area that has stayed in cotton in the 30 years he has been working with the gin.

“Some farmers in the area have tried other crops like sweet potatoes and even sugarcane, but they’ve found that this area is really best suited for cotton,” said Pierce, who has worked in cotton gins across the U.S. and in Guatemala and Columbia.

“The cotton ginning business isn’t dog-eat-dog like some other businesses,” he said in an interview after receiving the SCGA award. “If a gin is down, and another gin has a part they need, that gin will help them.

“I couldn’t have picked a better group of people to work with.”

To read more about Pierce, click on https://www.farmprogress.com/cotton-gins/therrell-pierce-life-cotton-ginning.