The Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service this week is marking 112 years of serving communities across the state.
To celebrate the milestone, the Garvin County Extension Office served free coffee to Garvin County Courthouse staff and visitors Monday morning during a Coffee and Conversations event. Monday afternoon, they welcomed a special visitor, OSU’s Pistol Pete (played this year by Stratford’s Hunter Morton), who posed for photos and signed autographs.
Oklahoma’s Cooperative Extension Service is part of a larger Extension network established by the Smith-Lever Act, which was signed May 8, 1914. The federal legislation established a partnership between the USDA and land-grant universities across the country, including Oklahoma A&M College, which later became Oklahoma State University. The service was designed to provide education on agriculture, home economics and rural life to people who were not attending college.
Today, OSU Extension is Oklahoma's statewide system for translating university research into practical guidance for residents, farmers, businesses and communities.
Operating in all 77 counties, OSU Extension provides research-based education in agriculture, family and consumer sciences, 4-H youth development, and community development—at no cost to Oklahomans.
“The Cooperative Extension is not just about agriculture,” Garvin County Extension Director Melissa Koesler said. “It’s so much more. The Cooperative Extension Service covers almost everything, from testing your pressure cooker to testing your soil, or your water. It’s free consultations for most anything. We’re a service for our community.”
Garvin County’s Extension offerings include programs about agriculture, production and management, natural resources and the environment, health and nutrition education, and family and community development.
“Every educator has a different area of expertise, but we all have resources to help with just about anything,” Koesler said.
Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service at the county level is funded entirely by state and county funds, according to Koesler.
“Our county is very supportive of the work Extension does, and the county commissioners and the excise board have been wonderful to work with,” Koesler said. “We’re very grateful for their support.”
On a personal note, Koesler, who was raised in Garvin County and comes from a farming background, said agriculture is her passion.
“Extension gives me an opportunity to advocate for agriculture and to teach others about whatever their passion is in agriculture – whether its horticulture, beef production, crop production,” Koesler said. “Another thing about Extension for me is it puts me in a position to continue to grow and learn more about something that’s so important to me.”
Youth development through programs such as 4-H is also a big part of Cooperative Extension’s programming. The Garvin County 4-H organization currently has 215 youth members from across the county.
“Just like Extension is not only about agriculture, 4-H is not just about livestock kids. It’s also about leadership and life skills and STEM,” Koesler said.
Through the years she has worked with children who have gone on to become veterinarians, work at the state Pork Council, become insurance agents, and perform as OSU’s Pistol Pete.
“These kids, I’ve watched them grow from these awkward little, shy kids into these adult leaders and be successful, no matter what they do,” Koesler said. “They inspire me to do better. They’re our future. It’s just such an honor to be able to see that. I get to be a part of something that to me feels even bigger.”
