June 19, 2025 Minutes

Weld County Extension Advisory Council Minutes

June 19, 2025

IN ATTENDANCE:

Sheila Beckley-FCS program update
Kali Benson-Extension Director
Rick Bowen
Amy Cooksey
Pat Kindvall
Dr. Darin Lickfeldt
Jill Matlock
Will Nelson
Cindy Nosko-Minutes
Commissioner Kevin Ross
Gary Schaneman
Lori Stevens

ABSENT:

Erin Mathews
Carol Pitre
Sean Short

Darin began the meeting at noon. The Advisory Board went around and introduced themselves.  Kali introduced herself and that she’s been married for about 5 years. She has always lived in Elbert County and met her husband at the Elbert County Fair.  He’s always lived in Weld County, so their marriage was pretty much every other weekend and two weeks each year.  She was excited to get the position in Weld so that they could finally be together.  Commissioner Ross motioned that the June minutes be approved, and Will seconded the motion. Motion passed.

Kali Benson gave a director’s report. Going on 3 weeks of her position and so far, it’s been a great experience and a lot of learning so far.  She has been in Elbert County for the last 10 years. Kalit started as the 4-H, Livestock, Ag Natural Resource, Horticulture agent.  After the previous director retired, she stepped in to that role as Director.  Elbert is a small but mighty community decently sized as far as land space.  There are definitely more cows than people and is a strong Ag based community.  They have a very strong 4-H and Master Gardener program.
Work has begun at White Plumb Farm as far as getting the demonstration beds maintained.  They’re working hard to clean up, pulling weeds, etc. 
4-H is in full swing.  Larry Hooker had a very successful Goat Extravaganza and is helping the livestock kids get ready for the fair.  Kim is currently in Ft. Collins as it’s state conference week, along with several 4-Her’s, Teresa and Lyndsey who is the 4-H intern for the summer working primarily with Teresa on programs and events.  Weld had a good day yesterday with the livestock judging and won the state contest. There was also a very successful horse quiz bowl, so they will be doing some travelling. In the horse judging contest, there was a combo team with Larimer and Weld Counties, and they won 3^rd place overall.
We also have Jaymie on board as the livestock intern to assist Larry with his programs. I didn’t realize that there were so many intern opportunities in this office.
Fair is in full swing with Mikayla, Cheryl and Tracey who is the summer data entry clerk for the Fair.
Next week there will be 2 additional summer help, both name Michelle and they will be assisting with setting up the fair office and other areas of the Fair.  Fair entries are coming in as well as people coming into the office to find out how to enter their goods in the fair.  They are also working with the vendors and getting them ready to set up.  Kali will be at the Weld County Fair and then head down to Elbert County for their fair which follows the week after Weld.
There’s been a lot of learning on the different processes here in Weld and all the different languages that Weld uses for those processes.
Budget proposals were due Monday so had 2 weeks to learn and review the budget.  Everyone has been very helpful, and the staff is fantastic.
The farmer’s markets have started for the Master Gardeners and some of them are coming into the office to work the phones for gardening questions. 
Darin asked if Elbert County had an advisory council in the area. They had one for years and kind of lost interest, so they are currently utilizing councils like the Fair, etc.
One thing that was asked of Kali was to let the council know how they can better assist Extension to do even better at getting out to the community.

Commissioner Ross gave the Commissioner’s report.  The commissioners are very grateful that Kali accepted the position of Extension Director.  They feel they hit a home run, and she is doing great. 
The commissioners are very busy right now. Started our first coordinated planning agreement (CPA.s) talks with the communities.  There are 32 municipalities around Weld County. There are CPA’s in force in all the towns but they are 20+ years old and not really meeting the planning demand of what we have.  We’re trying to update the agreements to look at what the county does well and what the municipalities does well.  What we have determined is that we don’t do residential well.  What we’ve decided as a county is that we’re only going to do subdivisions up to 9 lots and not the larger ones which would go to the municipalities as they need sewer, water, sidewalks and an active police force which we don’t do in Weld. 
It is construction season on the roads in Weld so please slow down and make it safe for the workers out there.  Have a lot of road projects we’re working on around the county.  The county road 77 project out to Grover is in the 3^rd year of construction. We’re making the road wider and bring the shoulders up as they should be designed making it safer and we should be finishing up this year.
We finished up getting our funding secured for the roundabout in Keenesburg by the Weld Central High School as that’s a very dangerous intersection there at CR 52 and CR 13.
We have another roundabout actively constructing at CR 6 and CR 13 outside of Ft. Lupton.  We just kicked off construction on the High Plains Blvd.  This is the new service road to the interstate.  When the state expanded the interstate, they took up the previous service road that was there next to the interstate, so we’re building another one so this is a public/private partnership process.  The developers are paying part of the as well as the county and Mead.  We kicked off construction of it last week.
We secured the right-of-way funding up at CR 31 and CR 74 for the roundabout although it was pretty much under water Tuesday afternoon. Hopefully that will fix the issue for the future.
We are working on a right-of-way for CR 54 and 257 west to the county line as we see that as a huge traffic area.
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 met with the Department of Defense a couple of weeks ago as they’re getting ready to replace all the missile silos in Weld County with their new missile called the Sentinel Missile.  This is the largest government contract ever.  It will be a one for one swap, so they’ll take one of the Peacekeeper Missiles out and putting the new one in.

Sheila Beckley gave an update on the FCS Program.   The classes that she teaches are the ones that the librarians or senior centers find that the people are interested in. We have a lot that is done digitally or electronically.
Have been working with High Plains Library District since 2021 with regards to presenting various topics of interest on their Facebook site, so the topics for 2024 food safety training for CO Cottage Foods producers, SERV Safe Food Protection Manager Certification with class instruction and exam proctor in Chinese.
Did an overview of the CO Cottage Foods Act and Food Preservation with the West Greeley Conservation District and High-Altitude Cookie and Candy making with Anthem Ranch 55+ community.
In the spring of 2025 did a state food safety, food manger proxy in Chinese.
Also did a class on blood pressure and how you can take it yourself. There was also a class “Dash” diet that had dietary approaches for stopping hypertension.
For 2025, the main difference is that she was asked to present food topics about pets as people are interested in pet related topics and making healthy pet treats at home and how to do it safely. Had a recipe for chicken biscuits for dogs.  Also, emergency preparation regarding pets.
For 2025, the topics by month are:

We tried to coincide with seasonal things along with other programs the libraries are doing.   Additional am also part of the family matters newsletter which includes a feature article on parenting issues, and information on health, physical activities, nutrition and child safety. I’m one of the co-editors and sometime even write articles.  This newsletter is housed on the CSU Extension website.  I wrote an article in the 2024 issue about fun ways to stay active.
There is also a blog that CSU puts out called the Live Smart Blog that is every week and I’ve written articles there also.
The Food Safety Umbrella in 2024 consisted of a large amount of CO Cottage Foods for people who are interested in selling their goods at Farmers Markets and the wanted to get trained in food safety.
Also do classes for SERV Safe Food protection Manager Certification for people that work in restaurants and upper commercial food services establishments.  Occasionally I get asked to serve as a proctor for people whose language is not primarily English.  I guide the in setting up an account and getting tested.  Last year as well as this year I had a couple of Chinese folks which made it difficult as I don’t speak Chinese and it’s very difficult to translate.
Was also asked to do high altitude baking at the Anthem Ranch community and did another proctoring for a couple of Chinese folks in getting their food manager certification as Weld County had a deadline of March of having at least 1% of people in their company or restaurant to be certified in food safety protection, which means people are scrambling to get the certification.
The Health Department and Workforce Development are working together to get the certifications completed.
With regards to food preservation, there is still some interest in canning, however fermentation canning is really the one that came about a few years ago, so did a class at Centennial Library on Kimchi fermentation and making Sourdough at the LINC Library that got fully booked within 10 minutes.  There is a class tonight again as there were so many people that want to attend and couldn’t, so now we have about 20 people.  I like to do only 12 at the most because sometimes there are so many questions.  Sourdough is still going as a topic of interest.
Did nutrition classes for older adults at Centennial Library and the topic was Meals for one or two, teaching them how to make smaller meals now that the kids are gone.  Some of the other classes were Mediterranean Diet, Meal Planning with Confidence, Seniors Eating Healthy during the Holidays and Dining with Diabetes.
For physical activity we did a walk indoors, a light aerobic exercise and the people really liked it so we’re going to do it again at the Carbon Valley Library.  It’s an activity that people really like when sometimes not convenient to go outside for a walk.
On the Healthy Aging, one of the classes was Who Gets Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate.  It’s a program for non-titled property that you want to bequeath family or friends such as a recipe book, or a watch, things like that.
Also did classes on Alzheimer’s and dementia, chair exercises for older adults, chair yoga and healthy living for your brain or body.
|In the Spring of this year these classes were done:

              Technology for Older Adults – at the Active Adult Center
              Nutrition for Older Adults – at 55 Resort in Windsor
              Healthy Brain and Body Series that included:
                             Healthy Living for Brain and Body
                             Nutrition for Older Adults
                             Sleep
                             Mediterranean Diet
                             Hooray for Heart Health (a new class)

With no further business or new business, the meeting was adjourned at 1:00 p.m.  The next Council meeting will be on August 21^st, at noon at the Extension Office.  Mikayla and Cheryl will be giving us an update on the Weld County Fair.