April 17, 2025 Minutes
Weld County Extension Advisory Council Minutes
April 17, 2025
IN ATTENDANCE:
Rick Bowen
Kim Eastwood-4-H Program Update
Pat Kindvall
Dr. Darin Lickfeldt
Jill Matlock
Cindy Nosko-Minutes
Carole Pitre
Commissioner Kevin Ross
Gary Schaneman
Sean Short
Lori Stevens
Cary Weiner-Interim Director
ABSENT:
Amy Cooksey
Erin Mathews
Will Nelson
Darin began the meeting a little after noon. The Advisory Board went around and introduced themselves and were asked what challenges they see with the current weather. The consensus was that a lot more moisture was needed. Gary motioned that the April minutes be approved, and Rick seconded the motion. Motion passed.
Cary Weiner gave a director’s report. We have a new director, Kali Benson who will start June 2nd. She is currently the director in Elbert County. She’s been in Elbert County Extension for about 10-11 years. She began as a 4-H Specialist there and has been a director there for about 4-5 years. She’s got integrity, is a good leader and very understanding. We feel that she will be a great asset to the office. Elbert has some similarities with Weld. It is felt that she’ll will do a good job. The fair season is coming on quickly and we’ll soon have a data entry clerk starting and also a livestock intern and 4-H intern all coming aboard for the summer. We are going to create two work areas off the back meeting room for a couple of them to have workstations. Kat, the Agronomy Specialist will be having a summer intern coming on to assist with the White Plumb Farm. Kat also starting up her small acreage site visits again.
Sheila, the FCS Specialist continues to offer many programs within the community, teaching programs like how to make sourdough, Kimchi fermentation, healthy living, etc. She’s also contributing to the Health Without Barriers and Dining with Diabetes programs.
Jen, the Horticulture Specialist is coming up to speed, she’s been here for a little more than 2 months and is getting more comfortable in her position. She is also giving a talk with the health department on starting your own garden and the volunteers are going to be at the Farmer’s Markets in Greeley, Windsor and Milliken answering questions. They’re also doing events like Earth Day and Arbor Day. The Master Gardeners will be in the office 3 days a week from 9 am to 1 pm through the warm months.
The EFNEP educator is fully funded by CSU, and she works out of our office. She worked at the Children’s Festival and is starting 3 class series in English and Spanish, working with low-income families, teaching nutrition and cooking on a budget. She just developed a partnership with the Food pantry of LaSalle. Since the time of the last council meeting the EFNEP educator has resigned her position, so it is currently vacant.
The 4-H also participated in the Children’s Festival. They gave out 250 flowers and had more than that in terms of the traffic that came through, raising the awareness of 4-H. Kim’s been doing some embryology programming in Hudson and Johnstown during the absence of Patrick.
There are some livestock events coming that Larry oversees and he’s working with 4-H families making sure they understand what is needed for their projects and understanding deadlines. He’s also got 3 animal ID events coming up to get animals ready for fair.
The fair is about 90 days away and the fair book is about ready to go to print this month. They’re finishing up contracts for Judges and working on more donations and sponsorships. They currently have about 36 vendor applications which was more than what they had last year.
Commissioner Ross gave the Commissioner’s report. They are currently working on planning where the Justice Center will go. The state of Colorado requires us to provide the courtrooms, and they provide the Judges. We’re out of courtrooms and will be getting a new judge this year. So, we’re working on finding the space for them.
We are also working to implement the strategic plan, working on the new compensation structure as it hasn’t been done since 1976. Instead of doing a typical step and grade structure, we’ll go to what’s call an open range structure where people fall into a range and ultimately will move to a merit-based pay structure. The new structure will begin the 1st of July.
Have a lot of road projects we’re working on around the county. Will begin on County Road 66 here any time and making it a 4-lane road similar to County Road 49 from 85 to County Parkway. Eventually that will be the northern entrance to the airport. We’re doing improvements to County Road 54 from Highway 257 West towards the interstate. That one will have similar buildout ultimately. We’re also working with the City of Greeley on the interchange at Highway 34 and County Road 17, coming from Johnstown and Windsor. We have several roundabouts going on the county roads, in the Johnstown area, in Keenesburg by the high school, one outside of Ft. Lupton on County Road 13 and 6. We’re finishing up on County Road 77 from Briggsdale to Grover.
We got a little attraction in the county last week. There was a well incident on a Chevron pad and the had and instant where it blew the head of the well off and spray about 80-85% water and about 15%gas/fracking fluid into the air. It took from Sunday at 6 pm to Thursday to get it plugged. They finally got it capped on Friday evening. So now they’re in the recovery phase of that to clean it all up for residences and farmers. It’s going to take awhile for the cleanup. They got all the roads cleaned and opened again. We’ll also continue monitoring the water and air to make sure the residents are safe. Currently the School in Galeton is closed for the week as the cleanup of the grounds and equipment are continuing. The students are being sent to Eaton for now.
Dr. Lickfeldt asked about the Weld County Economy Growth was going. Ross stated that the numbers came out about a week ago. Weld is the 3rd fastest growing county in the nation and the fastest growing in Colorado, the only one in the state that is growing its own population, which means our birth rage is higher than 2.0, leading to a fertile county.
Kim Eastwood gave an update on the 4-H program / outreach programs as Teresa and Patrick were unable to attend. 4-H this year was a busy one, Teresa is the 4-H event coordinator, so she gets to do all the fun stuff, like getting craft stuff together for events. Patrick is the Stem/Outreach Specialist, that does classes in schools and libraries like embryology. He is currently out of the office.
Last year for enrollment we were at about 900 youth, and it is holding steady so far this year. For the past 5 years we’ve been the top county for enrollments. Larimer was right behind us with about 50-100 enrollments lower than us. We have about 200 volunteers that help with the various clubs.
Teresa did the Children’s Festival which is one of the many events we do every year. They had about 250 pansy plants that the kids got to plant and take home. They also had cookies that could be decorated and little lambs that they could make out of doilies. Those they also got to take home. Even with all that, there was a whole lot more kids that also cam through the event. We try to have enough activities for 400-500 kids. Families that come to the event every year make sure they find our booth because all our activities are free. We’ve been lucky to provide free events with donations each year from Chevron which helps us to sustain a lot of the things we do.
We’ve also started doing Friday Fest that is held in downtown Greeley. The city closes everything down and we’re able to set up at a store front and have activities for the kids and this year we also did stick horses as the stampede changed their schedule and had the booth set up for July 4th, but that makes it more difficult to have a booth in one place. When the kids make the stick horses, we have them started and the kids put on the ears and decorate them the way they want.
One thing we have new this year was the social recognition for immigrant workers the CSU had at the pavilion in the park here. It was organized by them, and they reached out to us to set up a booth to get the 4-H out to families that may have not known about it. So, we had activities and information about 4-H for them and the families.
We are doing Camp Cloverbud too. We have one in the Fall and one in the Spring. The Fall one was down south in February which featured wildlife. They brought in hawks, had them flying around, and the Butterfly Pavilion brought things like bull and Rattlesnakes, a tarantula and scorpion, so the kids got to see different kinds of wildlife and learn about them. We are currently working on one for June. We hold that one here and its going to be more about vet science camp. They’ll have things like toads, tadpoles to learn about and will even dissect a plastic frog and learn about vet science and what it takes to be a vet.
We are getting ready for the Front Range Regional Speech Contest. The counties were doing them separately in their county and we all realized that we were spending the same time and energy for only about 4-5 kids showing up and sometimes were in the same age range, not making it much of a competition. So, we decided to combine a few of the counties and hold it in one place. We worked with Jefferson, Arapahoe, Adams, Boulder, Larimer and Weld County and had one contest in one area. Adams hosted it this year. This gave the kids more to work with and be able to interact with others while they were there. Each time we hod the event we try to find a centralized site that will work for everyone.
We have our annual Mardi Gras event each year In November which is a fund raiser for the 4-H Foundation. This past year we raised about $30,000 that went back into the foundation which then funnels back out to support other events for the youth.
We also have recognition night in October which is also growing. We provide a free meal for all the families to recognize the outstanding leaders, youth and graduating Cloverbud kids and all they accomplished.
I’ve been currently doing embryology that Patrick would normally do but is out of the office. There’s a program going on in Erie at the Montessori School. Gave the kids a talk all about setting up an incubator and how candling is done to see if the egg is viable. Then I’ll be setting up Johnstown next.
One of the big shifts has been our CWF Program. This is where we take kids every 3 years to Washington DC and traditionally got to a National 4-H Conference. In meeting with the kids and families, we have decided to forgo the conference this next year. One of the struggles we’ve dealt with since 2020 covid, was that they sold their 4-H Center which was where the conference was held and moved it to a Conference Center, and from there the National 4-H has also delayed the timing of when the conference was to be held. It was normally to be scheduled for June of 2026 so then I could have the plans in place by June 2025 as we always added on 5 days travelling the East Coast like New York, Philadelphia, Amish Country, etc., to give the kids a full adventure of learning.
Lately the National 4-H has been all over the place in their scheduling. One year it’s 5 days, then 7 and so on. So, we had a meeting with the families and youth and got a 90% vote to forgo the conference.
We’ve had 2 mandatory meetings so far this Spring since the shift. The first meeting in February we had a gentleman from Zimbabwe, Blessing Chimanga, come and speak to the youth. He was connected through one of the leaders in Johnstown. He is here on a Visa for music to share the culture of the music where he’s from and he is also working toward his citizenship. He’s gained national recognition for his unique blend of traditional African music and modern sounds. He’s also a music coach, director and producer. He’s been to about 30 countries and played concerts.
A couple of weeks ago we had Commissioner Ross, Bach and a couple of Senators come and hang out with us. They did round table talks with them and coached them on doing debates.
The consensus was since we weren’t going to the conference, we would bring the conference to the kids. The trip itself will be an 8-day trip, making visits to different capitals. We also have tour guides that we’re going to be hiring.
With no further business or new business, the meeting was adjourned at 1:00 p.m. The next Council meeting will be on June 19th, at noon at the Extension Office. Sheila Beckley will be giving an update on the FCS (Family Consumer Science) program.