No competition. Just cooperation.
The two largest higher-education institutions in Missouri, rivals at times, have joined forces to continue offering close-to-home educational opportunities for Wright County, Mo., residents, whether tailored to the farm or the homeplace.
How so? Common sense.
Simply put, Missouri State University had some extra office space at MSU’s Fruit Experiment Station in Mountain Grove, Mo., and offered its use to the MU Extension Service agents in Wright County. The arrangement enables Extension specialists assigned to Wright County to remain headquartered in the county instead of shifting further away to another county.
“We’re just tickled to death to be here,” said Ted Probert, MU Extension program director for Wright County, speaking at an Oct. 1 open house at the MSU-Mountain Grove research campus.
The need for a money-saving approach arose after a ballot measure for a tax levy of up to 5 cents for Extension operations was defeated countywide in April. The “no” vote meant that, in the face of necessary reductions in funding by the Wright County Commission, MU Extension would have to close its office in Hartville, Mo., in a building provided by the county.
To county Extension Council President Denis Turner, having Probert, a regional dairy specialist, remain in Wright County is crucial. That’s because Wright County is one of the state’s leading dairy producing counties.
“This is where he (Probert) needs to be located,” said Turner, a contract dairy heifer grower whose operation is west of Hartville.
Probert and Turner and other members of the volunteer Wright County Extension Council began working with Jay Chism, regional director in southwest Missouri for MU Extension, to figure out what to do. Chism, an MSU graduate, consulted with his former teacher and mentor, Anson Elliott, head of MSU’s Darr School of Agriculture.
That’s when Elliott suggested the MSU facility in Mountain Grove. After all, both universities serve the same constituents, he said.
“We don’t want to be exclusionary. We want to do what is right for the public good,” Elliott said.
The partnership also includes the Wright County Commission, which still will put in nearly $20,000 to pay for Extension Service costs for 2016, and the City of Mountain Grove, which agreed to contribute $4,000 in the coming year.
An agreement was reached fairly quickly after the April election. The Extension office move to Mountain Grove was made in June after officials with each university system signed off on a “memorandum of understanding.”
Probert and Christi Crisp, nutrition program associate, now are working out of Shepard Hall at the MSU fruit station. Crisp teaches family nutrition to kids in the county’s schools and to adults in places like senior citizen centers.
Support from the county Extension Council’s citizen members was crucial to the new arrangement.
“It never would have happened without them,” Probert said.
“The dominoes lined up,” Turner said.
“MSU and MU have a history of working together. For example, the two schools have partnered on horticulture classes and master gardener programs, and MSU graduate students have been able to work as interns for MU Extension.”
