Released Jan. 18, 2008
CHANDLER, Okla. – The 1999 tornado that destroyed the Tanger Outlet Mall in Stroud and severely damaged the local hospital led some to predict that Lincoln County would never recover.
“Things were tough, but when you work together, most anything is possible,” said Mick Jones, Lincoln County Extension director. “The tornado is still a topic of conversation in parts of the state. It’s linked to Lincoln County in the public consciousness, even today.”
Jones said the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service was one of the groups that worked side by side with Lincoln County residents during the recovery effort, and was proud to do so.
“Extension’s mission is to help improve the quality of life for state residents, and we certainly do that,” he said. “One of the strength’s of Extension is that it has a local, state and national presence, and can bring all those aspects to bear when the need arises.”
Among the many efforts spearheaded locally through the Lincoln County Extension Office were the development of a health plan that helped the Stroud Hospital reopen its doors, an emergency medical services study for the city of Stroud, a feasibility study for a kidney dialysis unit, a retail sales analysis for neighboring Chandler and a targeted industry analysis and a county financial trends analysis for all of Lincoln County.
“We’re engaging in community health planning for the Prague Hospital for the second time,” Jones said. “These efforts have provided tens of thousands of dollars worth of benefits.”
Then there are the activities and programs that might not be quite as “high profile” to the general public.
“We get a lot of questions about bad weather this time of year,” Jones said, “from how to plan for emergencies such as the effect loss of power can have on food safety and family health to cold-weather livestock management, to where people can go to get the latest on disaster relief, should the weather really take a turn for the worse. The county office is a good first step to finding out what you need to do for any number of situations.”
A particular strength of the Lincoln County Extension Office is that it is fully engaged in all four aspects of extension programming: agriculture, 4-H youth development, rural development and family and consumer sciences.
“We still get the occasional question about how we’re doing after the ‘big tornado,’ but it’s the day-to-day activities as much as the high-profile efforts that make a difference in people’s lives,” Jones said.
For example, Lincoln County’s 4-H School Enrichment Program has grown from 2,700 participants in 1999 to more than 5,900 participants in 2007. In the past three years, Ross Sestak of the Lincoln County Extension Office has offered and conducted aerospace technology programs to more than 1,100 kindergarten-through-eighth-grade students in the county and implemented environmental science programs that have helped to protect local ground and stream water supplies.
“One of the strengths of the local Extension office is that it is part of a statewide Extension system and can call upon the expertise of district specialists, as well as faculty in Oklahoma State University’s Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources,” said Jim Trapp, associate director of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, which is part of the division.
Trapp said that state specialists and educators can often bring to bear additional educational and research-based resources, from other colleges at OSU and the many cooperating state agencies that partner with and work closely with OSU, and even land-grant universities across the nation.
“In many ways, the local Extension office is the front door to a nation’s worth of expertise, thanks to the land-grant university system,” Trapp said.
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Contact: Donald Stotts, (405) 744-4079, donald.stotts@okstate.edu
