It’s peach season in Spartanburg County, and one of the area’s largest farming family members is joining the Spartanburg Convention & Visitors Bureau Advisory Board.
“We are so excited to have Harriett Belue joining the Advisory Board,” said SCVB Director Chris Jennings. “She knows what agriculture means to our community, its history, and the opportunities for visitors to enjoy all the locally-grown products of Spartanburg County.” Jennings cited the recently-updated Tourism Action Plan for the county that cites agri-tourism as a strong area of interest to visitors.
As the Spartanburg Herald-Journal recently noted in an article, Harriett’s family has roots in the area: Belue Farms located on Parris Bridge Road in Boiling Springs has weathered over 50 years of business change, including surrounding urban development. The Belue family recently sold a piece of farmland that will be used for the new Shoally Creek Elementary School, scheduled to open in August 2016.
Founders James and Betty Belue never saw themselves as educators, but experiences with so many students at the farm made them “teachers” to many. Generations of children who grew up in Boiling Springs worked summers on the Belue family’s farm, including Harriett and her now 24-year-old son Elliott from a first marriage. “I started working in the peach packing shed at age six,” she recalls. “We rarely had a summer vacation which seemed harsh at the time. But when I got older, I recognized the valuable lessons learned on a farm. You gain an understanding that there’s always a bigger picture to consider, and if you do your best, things turn out as they should.”
In addition to being co-owner of Belue Farms with her brother Mike, Harriett now manages Belue Farms Natural Foods Market located at the farm, plus handles marketing and bookkeeping. Prior to opening the farm’s store in 2001, she worked as a Consumer Education Representative and Marketing Specialist for Duke Energy. She left Duke to pursue a career in Alternative Medicine, specializing in acupuncture and Feng Shui. In fact, she was a Feng Shui consultant when her family asked her to return to farm life.
Harriett earned her BS degree in Home Economics Education from Winthrop University, and retains a passion for nutrition and a personal journey to eat a healthier diet. On that journey, she researched raw milk and found milkman LD Peeler of Milky Way Farm, now her husband. Harriett is current President of the Spartanburg County Farm Bureau Board of Directors and Chairperson of the SC Farm Bureau’s Fruit Advisory Committee.