Co-op leader’s ag roots planted long ago
“The hardest thing I have had to do is to lay off an excellent worker because a grant ends prematurely,” said Linda Keech, executive director of the Cornell University Cooperative Extension Dutchess County, based in Millbrook.
She looks back sadly on a five-year grant that was withdrawn after three years. “That was a tough one.”
Keech supervises employees, many of whom work with 1,000-plus volunteers, some running 50 4-H clubs involving 500 to 600 youths. Other major programs include agriculture, horticulture, environment, energy, family and consumer education.
“Right now we are in a period of crisis,” Keech said. “The county executive has proposed an 84 percent reduction in county funding. This is the lynchpin of total funding that we receive each year, because legally we cannot receive state and federal appropriated monies without our county funding. There are other grants also dependent on county funding, so that the county funding is tripled,” she said.
“We estimate the annual value of our volunteers”™ hours at $4 million.” She is hopeful that county legislators will restore the funds cut by the executive.
Although 4-H is best known for the traditional agricultural and animal science, crafts, sewing, and culinary arts, there are emerging outdoor education groups interested in hiking and nature, Keech said. The organization reaches into schools, especially during Ag Literacy Week.
Support groups and individual education assist grandparents and others assigned the role of caregiver for a child. The staff is also involved in watershed management, carrying out research and education programs to protect water sources.
The executive director is proud of the plant, soil and pest diagnostic lab, the horticulture diagnostic lab, volunteer master gardener training and services, and programs of pest management and pesticide safety, pesticide applicator training, dairy, crops, farm business management, equine science education and farmland preservation.
Keech was raised on a fourth generation turkey farm in the rural Connecticut River community of Gill, Mass., in what is known as Pioneer Valley. Today she and her sister co-own the farm, now devoted exclusively to hay and managed by her brother-in-law.
Growing up with her parents occupied selling Thanksgiving turkeys, she was assigned preparation of the family”™s Thanksgiving dinner, but with one stipulation: “Anything but turkey.” One year she chose lobster and another year the family was treated to buffalo meat.
“I grew up in 4-H. My major projects were sewing, textiles, nutrition, cooking and my horse. I remember when I was nine making a green and white pinstripe skirt, fashioning the pleats with a fork.”
After earning a bachelor”™s degree with majors in education and clothing/textiles, she interned with Cooperative Extension in Plymouth County, Mass. A master”™s of education in administration and management followed from Cambridge (Mass.) College.
“I was accepted for an international 4-H program experience designed to learn about other cultures by living with local families. I was assigned Greece for six months in l974. I knew no Greek, but I learned. My experience was cut short when Greece mobilized for war with Turkey over Cyprus.”
After working in various Massachusetts posts, she was offered her present job and celebrated her 10th anniversary Dec. 1.
Four years after assuming the position, she had a health setback. “I am an ovarian cancer survivor. It puts a lot of things in your life in perspective. My mother and grandfather died of cancer.”
Keech resides in Clinton Corners and is a gourd artist, working with natural materials, drying her own grasses and leaves.
Challenging Careers focuses on the exciting and unusual business lives of Hudson Valley residents. Comments or suggestions may be e-mailed to Catherine Portman-Laux at cplaux@optonline.net.