By Michael Howell
Montana State University Extension celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2014. MSU Extension is a network of educators in all counties of the state and specialists on the MSU campus providing unbiased, research-based education programs and information to strengthen the social, economic and environmental well-being of Montana citizens.
MSU Extension has been educating in Montana’s local communities for 100 years. It may show up as after-school or 4-H youth programs, a master gardener course, or in-person education and service through webinars on personal finance, testing for animal forages or crop health, or food preservation classes.
Extension was created through the Smith-Lever Act in 1914, which provided for cooperative agricultural extension work at the land-grant colleges that were established with the Morrill Act of 1862. The educational partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the nation’s land-grant universities extends research-based knowledge through a state-by-state network of Extension educators.
The original Smith-Lever charter states that the purpose of the Extension is, “better farming, better living, more happiness, more education, and better citizenship” for the “entire country.”
To achieve this purpose, the local Extension Office reaches out to partner with local organizations and educational resources. It supports development through leadership training, grant assistance, and participating in partnerships and projects at the community, county and state levels. Local Extension agents Katelyn Andersen and Katrina Mendrey provide support to a broad scope of committees such as the Ravalli County Nonprofit Partnership, Right to Farm and Ranch, Ravalli Head Start Policy Board and the Ravalli County 4-H Advisory Council.
They offer educational workshops on plant and pest management and personalized weed and grazing management plans and provide oversight for programs such as the Noxious Weed Seed Free Forage and Master Gardener programs. MSU Extension’s healthy living education brings about individual and community change on issues of finance, nutrition and home health through its family and consumer science program.
Want to learn how to grow and harvest fresh vegetables? Want to know how to store fresh fruits and vegetables for the best flavor? Want some good hints about eating well? It’s as easy as asking your local Extension agent. Andersen lead a team of extension agents from around the state partnering with the MSU Extension Horticultural Specialist and Food and Nutrition Specialist, to create guides called Food Fact Sheets. She also created a class to teach cutting techniques to make food preparation fast and easy using the guides as the foundation.
In addition to the Food Fact Sheets, the local Extension office also supports nutrition education through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education. This program offers free cooking and nutrition classes to income eligible adults and elementary students in the first, third and fifth grades. A school’s eligibility is based on participation in the Free and Reduced Lunch Program.
This past summer Andersen and Mendrey teamed up to educate youth as part of a community-led farm camp. The farm, organized by Bitterroot Ecological Awareness Resources and Homestead Organics, provided kindergarten through twelfth grade students with the opportunity to experience farm life first hand. Andersen, drawing from Extension’s established leadership development curriculum, provided high school counselors who participated with a crash course in farming practices and age appropriate teaching methods for working with kids in the targeted age group. Mendrey provided them with lessons on composting, soil health and fertility as well as facilitation tools to help them share this new knowledge with younger participants.
The Ravalli County Extension Office is strong on youth development and has sponsored a longstanding 4-H youth development program in the Bitterroot Valley with an emphasis on teaching life skills, responsibility and the value of citizenship.
Eighteen year old Elisa Plocher, a home schooled student from Corvallis, is one of the beneficiaries of the program. She started out as a Clover Bud at the age of 6 and has been in the 4-H program for 10 years.
She recently applied the leadership skills she learned in the program by leading bi-monthly Horse Skill-a-thon meetings with fellow 4-H horse members in preparation for participating in the 77th annual Montana 4-H Congress. Her team won in the state competition and is headed for the Western National Roundup in Denver this week to participate against teams from about 27 states in national competition.
Being home schooled, Plocher said that relatives and other people often ask her about her social life and how she meets people.
“4-H is my social life,” said Plocher. She said the 4-H program gets her involved with an age range from two years old to 102 years old. She said, “Horses are really my deal, but 4-H has prepared me in a number of ways for a better life. It’s an amazing program. It gives you a jump on life.”
Ravalli County is one of three counties in Montana selected to implement a 4-H Mentoring Partnership funded by a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The program, based in Darby, Corvallis and Hamilton, is in the fifth year of funding and each year reaches over 60 youth ages 10 to 14. The mentors are community members who volunteer at least one hour per week to help at-risk and underserved youth become successful, responsible citizens. They work with afterschool staff to meet the academic and social needs of youth by providing homework and literacy assistance, helping out with clubs, serving as 4-H project leaders, and participating in Family Night Out events. Mentors share their knowledge and wisdom and serve as friends and role models.
The local Extension office also offers reliable and non-biased financial information to the community through the Bitterroot Financial Education Coalition which started in 2011. The coalition was formed to get agencies working together to reduce redundancies, improve efficiency, and make a much more comprehensive package of personal finance education available.
The local Extension office gets about a third of its funding (33%) from Ravalli County. For every dollar from the county, MSU Extension provides $1.99 in direct and indirect support, or about 56% of the total funding. The direct support involves the cost of the agent’s salary and benefits. The indirect support provides the county office with resources such as publications, plant and pest diagnostic facilities, university specialist support, and professional development training. Another 10% of the funding comes in through mentoring and SNAP-ED grants.
For more information about the Ravalli County Extension Service, you may contact the office at 375-6611 or e-mail ravalli@montana.edu or go the website www.msuextension.org/ravalli.