Young farmer set back after incident

Germantown — At age 19, Charlie Jones has visions of a future involving barns, cows and hay. Jones wants to be a dairy farmer, continuing a long-standing family tradition that goes back at least six generations.
In the past year, Jones has begun his own small farming operation within his parents' property on the northern end of Germantown. He has been purchasing equipment and small huts for his young calves that he hopes will eventually become robust, award-winning cows.
Jones' dreams took a slight detour last week when a suspected drunken driver wound up traveling down a dead-end path that leads to the family farm. Between 10 p.m. Aug. 15 and 6:30 a.m. Aug. 16, a driver slammed into a fenced area, destroyed one of football jerseys the huts and seriously injured a calf that later had to be euthanized.
The incident resulted in about $3,000 damage, Jones said, and the figure does not take into account the veterinary bills, nor the time it took to clean the site up.
Jones' father, Bob, said there have been about 10 past incidents of damage at the farm site, located on Maple Road, though the most recent occurrence is one of the most severe. A month ago, a drunken driver abandoned his vehicle on the family's property, and Germantown police eventually arrested the offender.
Bob said he believes most of the incidents stem from patrons of one of three bars within the vicinity of the family's home.
While he views his operation as a business and his animals as livestock, Jones said he runs what he calls a "gentle farm." His mom, Michelle, gives neck rubs to the 30-plus Holsteins, heifers and calves currently on the family farm, and Jones said he makes every effort to be as humane as possible to the animals he owns.
"We all try to take care of them," Jones said. "These are my babies."
The calf that was put down was dragged about 50 feet by its ankle after being caught in some debris from the impact of the car collision. Jones had a veterinarian pop the calf's displaced hip back in place and was trying to nurse it back to health. But after five days, Jones said he realized the calf's life would never be the same, and he made the fateful decision.
"I wasn't angry until I had to shoot my own animal," he said. "Really, the worst thing for me throughout this whole ordeal Bengals jersey wasn't the property damage; it was seeing one of my animals injured. If you could see how (the calf) looked that morning … it was pretty bad."
Whoever plowed into the fence and huts likely incurred damage to their vehicle, Bob said. Shattered glass was left at the scene, as was a headlight. Bob looked up the type of headlight and found it belonged to a Chrysler Town and Country van that would have been manufactured between 2001 and 2004.
"We called around to all of the local agencies to see if anyone was pulled over that night with just one headlight," Bob said. "That's something that kind of stands out."
Despite the mishap, Charlie Jones said he looks forward to delving further into a career that has long interested him. He recently took a series of agriculture classes to learn more about the profession. The mishap has put him in the red financially, he said, but he looks to sojourn on.
"We would like to find the driver who did this," Jones said. "I was hoping to show this person what the damage did to my Browns jersey calf."
Lt. Brian Henning with the Germantown Police Department acknowledged that the department responded to the scene when the damage was discovered Aug. 16. Members of the department did not respond to a reporter's call this week seeking further comment.