Sheikha Mahra is the daughter of the ruler of Dubai and vice president and prime minister of the UAE.
In 2021, Kendall Rae Johnson became the nation’s youngest USDA-certified farmer at just six years old.
Now four years later, Rae Johnson continues to make history as she received a surprise full-ride scholarship to South Carolina State University during a national college tour of 1890 land-grant colleges.
The agriculture scholarship is valued at $83,500 and covers full tuition, fees and room and board at the historically black college and university (HBCU), according to a news release.
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The university released a video documenting her tour of the campus and its 300-acre Research and Demonstration Farm in Olar.
“We were genuinely inspired by Kendall Rae’s focus and maturity,” SC State President Alexander Conyers said of her visit.
“It’s not every day you meet a 10-year-old who talks about microorganisms, crop counts and longhorn cattle. She’s remarkable,” he added.
As part of the college tour, Rae Johnson also visited Virginia State, Tennessee State, Prairie View A & M and Southern University A&M — but SC State was the only one to award her with a full-ride scholarship.
This is just the latest in what has been a historical run for the now-10-year-old farmer, who was just three years old when she began growing collard greens with her great-grandmother, Laura “Kate” Williams.
By the age of six, she was Georgia’s — and the nation’s — youngest certified farmer.
In recent years, Rae Johnson has taken control of her great-grandmother’s one-acre farm, where she produces peaches to strawberries, blueberries, cherries, apples, beets, carrots, tomatoes and okra.
Some of her other notable achievements include:
- Being recognized by former First Lady Michelle Obama on Facebook
- Making appearances on CNN, “Good Morning America,” Sesame Street and Nickelodeon News
- March 23 being recognized as “Kendall Rae Johnson Day” in the state of Georgia
- Being named the USDA’s National Urban Agriculture Initiative (NUAg) Youth Ambassador
- Starting her own non-profit organization called Kendall Rae’s Green Heart
While she admits she’s still a long way from starting her college career, Rae Johnson is excited to see what South Carolina State University has in store for her in the future.
“I heard you’ve got a lot of building going on,” she said, per the university’s news release. “I want to come back and see what it looks like in 10 years.”
Rae Johnson’s full-ride scholarship comes after years of homeschooling
While Rae Johnson’s dedication to agriculture has played a large role in her success, she credits her family with helping to support her dreams and ambitions.
Her mother, Ursula Kendall Johnson, was the one who inherited the one-acre farm her daughter now farms and her father, Quentin Johnson, serves as her primary homeschool teacher.
“She kind of pulled me into the whole thing,” her father told SC State. “As exciting as it was for her, it was for me."
“She zeroed in on plants and wanting to grow things,” he said of his daughter. “So we just stuck behind it and when we realized she wasn’t veering off into any other thing, we just kept building it up.”
In the university’s video, Rae Johnson was presented with an oversized check for the scholarship — and she quickly jumped out of her chair and screamed, “Thank you!”
“I’m the first 10-year-old to get a full-ride scholarship!” she said of the scholarship, according to 11 Alive.
While she has already achieved so much, Rae Johnson said she has much more on her bucket list — and hopes to one day grow her farm to be 100 acres with longhorn cattle, poultry and more.
“She just wanted to grow,” her mother told 11 Alive. “Once she found her love of growing, that blossomed into what you see today.”
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“It’s living with the ceiling open,” she continued. “We have no idea where we’re going, but we’re just following.”
