Emilou Phelps Spruill is the newest face at Tyrrell County NC Agricultural Extension, a position that has been dream come true for the Creswell native.
The daughter of Charles and Freda Phelps, Emilou has always been right at home on the farm and is one of the most recognized faces in the county’s local 4-H and livestock show exhibitions and sales.
“We always had livestock on the farm for many years,” she muses. “We didn’t get sheep on the farm until around 1996. We bought two ewe lambs and I started showing them at both the Washington and Beaufort County 4-H show. That’s how it all started for me.”
In this way, participating in livestock shows became a way of life and a hobby that persisted from childhood, through her teenage years and into young adulthood.
“I really enjoyed showing… so much that I always knew that I wanted to branch out,” she says. “I started showing on the Eastern Carolina Showmanship Circuit and at the State Fair.”
As such, it would come as little surprise to anyone who knows her that becoming an agricultural extension agent was among her top priorities.
After graduating from Creswell High School in 2004, Spruill attended Elizabeth City State University for two years where she took all of her general education courses. For Spruill, initially attending ECSU was a tactical decision.
“I went to ECSU first because I wanted to be closer to home but I also wanted to be close enough so that I could still show lambs,” she explains. “At that time, I hadn’t aged out of being able to show sheep at shows so I still wanted to participate in that until I did.”
Spruill would continue to do so before later transferring to North Carolina State University in the fall of 2006. Here she completed her bachelor degree in Extension Education and minored in animal science. Not long after, she would remain at NC State and obtain her Masters degree in Extension Education but this time monitoring in poultry science.
Despite the strides she made towards becoming an Ag agent, officially joining the profession would prove elusive. However, this brief bit of disappointment would pave the way for a new avenue of exploration.
“When I graduated in 2010, there just weren’t a whole lot of extension jobs out there. Despite trying, I just couldn’t find one,” she recounts. “I ended up going to work at Wombles in Plymouth, where I stayed for about 10 years...”
