Author Archives: keenean

Preparing for fair, teaching young gardeners about soil in Lane County

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Hello everyone! My name is Ally Hand, and I am an intern in the OSU Extension office in Lane County for the summer. I will be working under the supervision of Elizabeth Gangwer, 4-H Program Coordinator for Lane County.  

I am originally from Bend, Oregon, but have spent the last few years in the Willamette Valley and intend to stay. I am a senior at OSU, studying horticulture with a focus in sustainable production. 

Some of my interests include gardening, cooking, baking, reading, listening to podcasts, and cross-stitching. One interest that I plan to get back into over the summer is brewing kombucha and maybe trying my hand at canning. 

As a Pacific Northwest native, you may guess that one of my interests is hiking. I visited Silver Falls State Park for the first time in June. I went during the weekend and didn’t anticipate seeing the trails packed with people. I would definitely recommend going, just expect there to be a lot of visitors if you’re going on a weekend. 

I was first exposed to OSU Extension when I was in elementary school when my grandma became a Master Gardener. Yet, I didn’t think about Extension a lot until I reached college. 

During my third year at OSU, I found out there was a class I could take called “Introduction to Extension & Engagement.” That 10-week class taught me the ins and outs of all things OSU Extension and ignited a spark inside me that hasn’t burnt out. 

During my internship I will mainly be helping out with Lane County 4-H and their Youth Fair that will be from July 20-July 25. So far, I have done quite a bit of preparation by making schedules, organizing boxes, and designing signs. I’m hoping that I also get to collaborate this summer with the horticulture and community agriculture side of Extension, as well. 

In between fair preparation I have also been planning two Junior Master Gardener camps that are  scheduled for August 9-12 and August 16-19. Teaching youth about plants, gardening, and especially soil, is a passion of mine, so I am looking forward to those two weeks. 

I started at OSU in 2016 and have my fingers crossed that I will finish up in spring 2022. My intention is to work for OSU Extension in the form of community outreach and working with farmers across the state. For now, I don’t plan to attend graduate school but I would love the opportunity to attend someday. 

I am truly looking forward to a summer filled with all things OSU Extension and all of the community connections that I make. 

Getting to work behind the scenes in Lake County Extension

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Hello!  My name is Alyson Yates, and I grew up in the high desert and sagebrush of Lakeview, Oregon.  I began my involvement in the OSU Extension 4-H program as a fourth-grader and continued to show livestock and participate in the arts throughout my time in high school.  I also traveled to National 4-H Congress in Atlanta as a part of the 2018 Oregon delegation, and during my final year, I served as an Oregon 4-H state ambassador.  While I still raise livestock, I also love to travel (domestically and internationally), spend time outdoors, paint and take photos.  During the academic year, I work as a student marketing photographer at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. I recently completed my first year at EOU, where I am studying agricultural science and pursuing minors in animal science and comparative international agriculture.  

During my junior year, I hope to study abroad at either Lincoln University in New Zealand or the University of Edinburgh in Scotland to focus on global sustainable agriculture and outreach. After earning my bachelor’s degree, I plan to earn a master’s degree in agricultural education before finding a career within university Extension 4-H program development. 

This summer, I will be an intern at the Lake County Extension office, working alongside Breann Vandenberg, the county’s 4-H youth development & family community health outreach program coordinator.  Throughout the upcoming weeks, I hope to interact with the youth of Lake County through both livestock and non-livestock projects, inform members and their parents about the many impactful leadership opportunities available through 4-H, and gain experience with 4-H program development behind the scenes.  I would also love to incorporate one of my other passions, photography, into this position, and help to cultivate the growth of fine arts programs in Lake County’s 4-H.

I believe that youth are essential to the future of agriculture in our country,  and that providing education, support, and opportunity for rural youth to thrive is possibly the most important thing that our generation can do to cultivate a future of agricultural sustainability. 

I want to be able to provide these things to the youth in my community and encourage them to grow and better themselves through many different outlets, just as I was fortunate enough to do.  Since I hope to ultimately find a career within Extension, this is an extremely valuable experience for me, and I am so excited to get started.

 

 

 

Dedicated to disaster relief and community needs in Jackson County

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Hello everyone!

My name is Kanar Shaiban. My home country is Yemen, and my family and I moved to the United States a few years ago. While they settled in Virginia, I live in Oregon. My favorite hobbies are hiking and fishing.

I am currently a senior at OSU majoring in public health with a focus on health promotion. In addition, I intend to pursue a minor in global health. I am proud to be an OSU Extension intern this summer, where I will be working under Caryn Wheeler’s supervision at the Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center in Jackson County. Caryn is an assistant professor of practice in the Family and Community Health Program in OSU’s College of Public health and Human Sciences.

My internship will be dedicated to disaster relief and community needs, and I’ll be working with those who were displaced by the Almeda fire last September. I’ll be collecting data on the unmet needs of the survivors. I’ll also create a development plan for those individuals by implementing some proposals and opportunities into practice.

Before the internship began, I had many doubts that I would be able to succeed, mainly because everything seemed hazy at first. However, I gained confidence within a week as I better grasped the Extension’s aim and objectives. Caryn, in particular, was beneficial and supportive. She provided me with direct support and coaching to assist me in achieving my goal. In the first two weeks, she organized a series of community meetings to help me gain a better understanding of the work, the community, and the organization’s partners. She helped me observe and think creatively. Without her, things would not have been the same. To me, she is a vital component of the internship’s outstanding success.

Bound for a career in Extension

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Hello everyone!  

My name is Alli Studnick, I am 22 years old, and from the small town of Scio, Oregon, where I live on my family’s 400-acre cattle ranch. Our ranch started in 1944, and I am a fourth-generation cattle rancher. We run about 200 head of cattle and we also raise pigs. I have “3½” horses – when you count my Shetland pony. We also have a goat, four dogs and lots of cats. 

While I am not helping my family on the farm, my hobbies include riding and competing in speed events with my horses Dalton Dixie and Romeo. In July of 2019, I was working at a farm stand and a woman walked in with a dog and asked me if I wanted her. She had found her on the side of a road and couldn’t keep her. So, I took her home, and the rest is history! Ivy is a 2-year-old Australian shepherd and she’s my best friend, we do almost everything together. She loves adventure. She rides horses, four-wheelers, riding lawn mowers, tractors, mopeds, and does everything in between. She’s such a fun dog and I am so lucky to have her.  

This June I graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in agricultural science and minors in crop and animal science. This fall I am headed to the agricultural education master’s program here at OSU to become an extension agent!

When I was younger, I was in 4-H and FFA in Linn County. I showed horses and sold pigs to pay for my horse obsession. I knew that the OSU Extension Service helped put on the fair, but I really didn’t know much more than that. When I was a junior at OSU, I enrolled in a class titled “Intro to Extension and Engagement.” During this course we learned about different programs of OSU Extension and met some of the agents in each program. After the class ended, I was hooked and knew that I wanted to pursue Extension as my career. 

Most of my life has been spent in the agriculture industry, and I’ve just been so inspired by farmers, ranchers, Extension agents for their love and passion of making the world a better place. This is why I decided to pursue a career in Extension, specifically in the agriculture field. Interacting with my community and listening to their stories, challenges, or successes in their farms and ranches makes me motivated to lend a helping hand in whatever needs they might have. Overall, I want to make a difference in every person’s life I may cross, which is why Extension is the perfect path for me!  

This summer I will be an intern with Chrissy Lucas, who is the Extension groundwater quality outreach program coordinator in the Willamette Valley. I am really excited for this opportunity to learn more about this part of Extension, and to meet the different people in the communities of Polk, Linn, Benton and Marion counties!

Trading salmon fishing in Alaska for a summer internship in Astoria

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Hello everybody, my name is Luke Brockman, and I’m humbled and excited to introduce myself as an intern this summer in the OSU Extension Service. I’ll be working under the supervision of Aaron Groth, Extension regional fire specialist for Clatsop and other northern counties in Oregon’s Coast Range. I’ll also be working alongside the rest of the team members in OSU’s Extension office here in Astoria.

Here’s a little bit about myself: I’m 23, and I’m a senior at OSU. My primary area of study is biocultural anthropology, with a bachelor’s in sustainability. I’m originally from Kodiak, Alaska – a large island in the Gulf of Alaska, situated due south of the opening of the Cook Inlet. My family moved to the small town of Triangle Lake, Oregon (about 50 miles southwest of Corvallis) when I was still an infant, but during the course of my childhood, I spent enough time visiting Kodiak to consider it home.  

It’s late June, so normally I would typically be on a commercial salmon fishing boat somewhere around Kodiak Island, searching tirelessly for salmon returning to their streams to spawn and continue that amazing, cyclical spectacle of biology. This summer will be the first since I’ve graduated high school that I’ll be staying in Oregon instead, and I couldn’t be more excited to get to work with Aaron. 

When Aaron is in the field doing community outreach, speaking at workshops and at meetings with stakeholders, I’ll be there too – shadowing him, meeting people, and taking notes in my journal. Already I’ve gained insight into both the career world at large and into the work of OSU Extension, as well as the Oregon community of forest owners and stewards. Although I’m not a student of Forestry and natural resources, I’m confident that the curriculum in both of my undergraduate fields of study will prove useful in assisting with the projects and concerns of the boards and individuals that Aaron and I will be interacting with this summer.  

I think it’d be awesome to have the chance to write a newspaper article having to do with fire awareness and education, and the diversity of landowners and stakeholders in the Coast Range. I love both writing and doing field research and I’m particularly inspired by ethnography and analog photography (one of my main creative outlets). Prior to stumbling upon this internship opportunity, I knew very little of OSU Extension. I assumed that the office in Astoria was some sort of liaison for researchers working at OSU to access resources and an office space. Now that I know what OSU Extension really is, and what its goals and objectives are for our diverse Oregonian communities, I’m very honored to be part of an organization whose community-oriented philosophies align so closely with my broader ethical ideals as a person.