Bison on I-20 was headed to farm in Sparta, owner says

Minter, who owns the Lone Branch Farm with his wife, Carolyn, said it was his first time transporting the large animals.

He has no idea how the bison – which his daughter was supposed to name – jumped out of the truck.

“The gates were locked, so they couldn’t get out,” he said.

There was an opening, however, about 3 feet wide. Minter said he remembers a semi-truck blowing its horn at another car that was getting too close.

“A lady pulled me over and said, ‘Your animal jumped out,'” Minter told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday morning. “I said, ‘There’s no way.’”

He thinks the horn must have scared the bison, and it jumped through the opening.

“I looked, and all of the gates were locked. I just couldn’t believe it,” he said.

The bison’s legs were broken. DeKalb County Police Officers eventually euthanized it.

“It was just a freak accident,” Minter said.

The Minters are trying to start a summer camp for at-risk high-school students. They are partnering with the nonprofit Community Building Enterprises of Knoxville and hope to get started in the summer of 2011.

Minter, a former director at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, wants to start the camp to get students interested in energy, agriculture and biology.

“For our country, science and math and bioenergy are some very hot topics,” said Jeffrey Rowe, executive director of Community Building Enterprises. “Hopefully, we can connect kids to these topics and get them to go in these directions for careers.”

Rowe said the goal is to offer four two-week programs during the summer as well as one-day programs throughout the year. He said they likely will target students in the Southeast and on the East Coast.

Students would take classes and also work on the farm, he said.

Rowe said they are trying to raise money now – through state and federal government agencies as well as through private resources. To get the camp fully operational will cost, “um, a lot,” Rowe said.