Photo: Brandonrush / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Iowa State University Extension and Outreach marked its statewide week April 12 to 17, 2021, with each of Iowa’s 100 county extension offices planning activities to thank the people who use them. Wright County’s office was among them.
Regional Director Sarah Merrifield said the past year had changed how extension served Iowans but not the reason it does the work.
That year had been a strange one. Extension moved 4-H meetings, master gardener classes and farm meetings online, ran pesticide applicator training under distancing rules, and fielded questions from farmers dealing with the 2020 derecho and the market swings of the pandemic.
Extension, created by the federal Smith-Lever Act in 1914, is funded by a mix of federal, state and county money. In Wright County, the office works with farmers, families, youth through 4-H and local businesses.
Dale Brekke writes for Clarion News Online.