In Park County School District 1 cafeterias support a Big Horn Basin business and alternative agriculture at the same time.

Each week PCSD1 receives an average of 150 cases of lettuce from Greybull Valley Produce, always a day after picking. The lettuce is delivered by owner Dwight Koehn or his son who have been growing in the area since 2014. They now serve 100 customers including not just PCSD1 but four school districts in Big Horn County and two in Fremont County.

PCSD1 food services director Jill Queen said the lettuce allows the district to support area farmers and benefit from quality customer service and at the same time have a clean crop from a controlled environment that is not covered in soil. Of course they still clean the lettuce before use, Queen joked.

Greybull Valley Produce provides PCSD1 with  lettuce year round, a huge feat for a local grower in Wyoming’s harsh climate.

“You don’t see much lettuce growing around Powell do ya,” Koehn said.

He’s able to grow fresh quality lettuce by utilizing hydroponics. This is an alternative growing method that requires less space and doesn’t need soil. It just needs water and nutrients. It even uses less water than the traditional method and can be done year round.

Koehn said that they have roughly 12,600 square feet of indoor growing space and because of hydroponics they use 10% less water.

“You can basically control climate, you can control the environment, you can grow year round,” he said.

When Koehn started growing in 2014 he was making cold calls and walking into buildings. He said the product speaks for itself. That’s something Queen agrees with — students and staff alike are fond of the fresh, clean product and it’s flavor.