The Tuesday Letter
Agricultural Experiment Station & Cooperative Extension Service

  
Vol. 12, No. 11  January 24, 2006

IN THIS ISSUE...

...Word from the Associate Director - Extension and Applied Research
...Employee of the Year Recognition and Awards Nominations Due
...FCS $500 Scholarship for Professional Development Fall 2005 - Spring 2006
...Intern Requests Due February 6
...Women Managing the Farm
...Young Families Newsletter Available from FCS Website
...Healthy Foods, Healthy Farms Conference
...Commercial Spray Guides Available
...What's Hot in 4-H
...Master Schedule

...Tuesday Letter Archives

WORD FROM THE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR - EXTENSION AND APPLIED RESEARCH
In a recent "thought for the day" from Kirk Weisler, he quoted a thought from Paul Johnson, Ace Hardware Corporation, that I thought was pretty good. It went,

Kirk Weisler goes on to say "All too often people are comfortable with their current place and unwilling to leave it for something they are striving for."

I had some truly great mentors over the years who helped me to understand Extension work and to hopefully understand a bit more about myself. I will never forget a conversation I had with a seasoned, stalwart Extension Specialist and Professor when I was a young, relatively new Extension Specialist and Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri. His wisdom to me went something like this, "Daryl, you know how you get enthused and excited when you are developing a new educational initiative and all the associated programming and resource materials. You believe you are going to change thinking, farming practices, or whatever issue your program focuses on. You begin to work on that program and each time you come back to campus you are anxious to develop some things further. Maybe you find you need another educational resource or you need to rewrite a publication. Maybe you need to develop a demonstration project or you need to bring some other key leaders from the campus or the industry into your efforts." Then, he went on to say, "At some point in time you begin to feel comfortable with that program and what you have created in the way of partners in the initiative, meetings, demonstrations, educational resources, and the audiences you've reached. As you begin to feel that comfort, you should really begin to feel uncomfortable, because, at that point you've pretty much ridden that program to its maturity. Now it's time that you should be preparing for the next major initiative that you want to run with to address another critical need."

No doubt, that was some of the best advice I could have ever gotten when working in Extension. As we become entrenched in one way of doing things, we become comfortable with who we reach, we become comfortable with what we teach, we become comfortable with how we teach, and ultimately we lose our edge, our enthusiasm, or effectiveness, especially with addressing new program needs or issues. We are so overwhelmed with the all the things we've done, and continue to do, because they are relatively easy and comfortable and yes, there is still someone out there who likes that you do those things. But we then become unwilling to consider some of the most compelling needs simply because we are too comfortable being fully employed with what we do.

Program focus on critical, relevant issues remains extremely important for the effectiveness of an Extension professional. Yet, to keep the vibrance and vitality to the program and its ability to reach audiences, the best of the best find new and better ways to address issues, and then target a new issue within that program focus with some new and exciting approaches to engage clientele.

If you find yourself doing the same old same old, I hope you will feel some discomfort and think seriously about how you need to move in order to achieve something you are truly striving for. --Daryl Buchholz dbuchhol@ksu.edu

EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR RECOGNITION AND AWARDS NOMINATIONS DUE
I would like to remind all K-State Research and Extension employees about our Employee of the Year Recognition and Awards program. The nominations are due to Teri Davis in 146C Waters Hall by next Tuesday, January 31, 2006.

We are continuing with four awards:

1) One County/District/Area Extension classified employee or office professional award
2) One classified employee award for Agricultural Research Centers
3) One classified employee award for the College of Agriculture/K- State Research and Extension employees on-campus*
4) One unclassified employee (non-faculty person) award for the College of Agriculture and all divisions of K-State Research and Extension on- and off-campus in all five colleges we work in.

Nominations are due to your department head, extension or center director, very soon and are due on campus by January 31. Nominations may be submitted by anyone in the various offices. We do not want to limit who nominates -- anyone can nominate anyone, including themselves.

If you did not receive a nomination form, go to the oznet website, click on http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/main/staffcorner.asp , which takes you to Staff Corner. Look under Staff Resources and click on an Employee of the Year form in either Word or Acrobat.

* (K-State Research and Extension classified employees in other colleges besides Agriculture are nominated and recognized through those colleges.)

We have a great organization made up of wonderful, hard working people. Please take the time to nominate a deserving candidate. If you have questions, please contact my assistant, Steven Graham, sgraham@oznet.ksu.edu . --Fred A. Cholick

FCS $500 SCHOLARSHIP FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FALL 2005 - SPRING 2006
The purpose of this scholarship is to provide financial assistance to Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Educators who are properly enrolled in a Master’s degree program at Kansas State University as a means to develop their career in Family and Consumer Sciences Extension.

Applications are due February 1, 2006. More information about eligibility and renewal are available on the FCS Website: http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/fcs/FCSScholarship/Application.pdf . --Margaret Phillips margaret@ksu.edu

INTERN REQUESTS DUE FEBRUARY 6
County and district extension offices that would like to host an intern this summer are reminded that February 6 is the deadline for submitting a brief proposal. Interns will be in local offices from May 30 to August 5. Five local offices will be selected to share the cost of an internship with K-State (the county/district share would be approximately $2500). See the November 30 letter regarding the internship for additional details. --Stacey M. Warner swarner@ksu.edu

Participants can board a bus at various locations in the state for a free ride to the workshop in Wichita.  It will be a first come, first served basis for reserving a space on a bus. Departure points are Garden City (or  Dodge City), Goodland (or Hays or Salina), Lawrence (or Emporia), and Oklahoma City (or Blackwell, OK). For more information and to register, call Kansas Rural Family Helpline at 1- 866-327-6578, or go to the website to retrieve a registration brochure at www.k-state.edu/farmksu/wmfconf.htm . Registrations are requested by February 9, 2006.  There is a $50 registration fee that includes conference materials, meals, and refreshments.--Mary Lou Odle mlodle@oznet.ksu.edu , Sarah Fogelman sfoglema@oznet.ksu.edu , Charlotte Shoup Olsen colsen@oznet.ksu.edu

YOUNG FAMILIES NEWSLETTER AVAILABLE FROM FCS WEBSITE
The Young Families Newsletter is a targeted audience newsletter. It is intended to be used in its original format for families with children up to about age 10. YFN was developed to be used as it is and will be published on a quarterly basis. It may be downloaded into Adobe Acrobat where local information may be added to the box in the lower right section of the back page.

Some suggested audiences are: 4H Newsletters, Family-Serving Agencies, Head Start, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Churches, WIC and Day Care sites.

The content of the newsletter reinforces the outcomes of K-State Research and Extension’s five year plan. Therefore, it should be helpful in building awareness and supporting your local program plans.

The first quarterly newsletter of 2006 has been posted to the website. In addition, all newsletters published in 2005 have been translated into Spanish and are also available at this site:  http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/fcs/YFN/yfn/YFNWelcome.htm . --Margaret Phillips margaret@ksu.edu

HEALTHY FOODS, HEALTHY FARMS CONFERENCE
Food, nutrition and the ways processing and production practices impact food quality are topics to be presented at the Healthy Foods, Healthy Farms Conference, February 17 and 18, 2006 in Manhattan at the Alumni Center.

Renowned professor and author, Marion Nestle, is the keynote speaker. To view the entire agenda or register, visit the conference website, http://www.dce.ksu.edu/hfhfconf/ .

Travel reimbursement is available for county, district, area and state extension specialists. --Jana Beckman beckman@ksu.edu

COMMERCIAL SPRAY GUIDES AVAILABLE
The 2006 Commercial Tree Fruit Spray Guide (S-146) and the 2006 Midwest Commercial Small Fruit and Grape Spray Guide (S-145) are available at the KSU cooperative Extension Service. To order, call 785-532-5830, or e-mail: orderpub@lists.oznet.ksu.edu . --Christy Dipman cdipman@ksu.edu

WHAT'S HOT IN 4-H
4-H Calendar of Events
http://www.kansas4-h.org/TipSheet/calendar.htm

4-H Horticulture Judging
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Events/HortContest/Default.htm

4-H Recognition & Awards Judging
http://intranet.oznet.ksu.edu/4-h/Area&StateScreening.pdf

4-H Specialist Position Announcement
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/operations/jobs/StaffDevSpec4H.htm

Blue Ribbon Basic Training
https://4hyp-ts.oznet.ksu.edu/wconnect/ace/home.htm

Citizenship In Action
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Events/CitizenshipinAction/Default.htm

Citizenship Washington Focus
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Events/CWF/Default.htm

Discovery Days Classes & Tours
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Events/DiscoveryDays/Default.htm

Dog Leaders & Judges Training
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Projects/DogCareTraining/JudgesTraining.htm

Kansas City Global Conference
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Events/KCGC/Default.htm

Multi-Co 4-H Photo Workshop
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Projects/Photography/PhotoEvents.htm

Shooting Sports Matches
http://4-h.k-state.edu/ShootingSports/LocalMatches.htm

State 4-H Horse Panorama
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Horse/Panorama/Default.htm

Strengthening 4-H Clubs Training
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Events/Strenclubflier.pdf

Wichita Garden Show 4-H Contests
http://4-h.k-state.edu/Events/Contests.htm

--Justin Wiebers jwiebers@ksu.edu

VIEW THE MASTER SCHEDULE OR ADD NEW ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS. 

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