Agricultural News
In His Brand New White Hat- Dean Tom Coon Travels the State and Promotes DASNR
Wed, 11 Feb 2015 06:00:20 CST
Dr. Tom Coon has quickly learned his way around the state of Oklahoma, even as he continues to get year one under his belt as the Dean and Vice President of the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University. Dr. Coon joined the OSU family last July, so he is learning the spring schedule that many in Oklahoma agriculture know by heart- late winter meetings, the Youth Expo, the Spring Oklahoma City Farm Show, the State FFA Convention and so much more.
Dr. Coon has shown up at a great many of the meetings already since last summer- and he told Farm Director Ron Hays as they talked at the winter Quarterly Board Meeting of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association "I'm a professional student and this is one more example of how I get paid to go out and learn things." On Tuesday, he started the day in Durant, learning about economic development as it is tied back to agriculture- and from Durant- he drove into Oklahoma City to offer noontime remarks to the OCA.
Dr. Coon bragged about the tremendous faculty and staff that makes up the Division of Ag and Natural Resources- and told the cattle men and ladies that there's a lot of good things going on- both in Stillwater as well as across the state for DASNR. There are several building projects underway- and he said there is also some equipment upgrades happening as well. One example that he talked about was irrigation equipment used on several of the research stations around the state. Coon says that the current irrigation equipment is about twenty years old- saying "producers don't use equipment that old and if we want to help them- we can't either." He expressed thanks to the Legislature for providing funds last year that is now being used to update that equipment to help OSU researchers better serve farmers that are looking for irrigation based information.
There are several building projects underway that DASNR will benefit from, including a new Equine Teaching Center that will be available to use sometime in the latter part of 2015. Dr. Coon also talked about one long term building need- the replacement of Ag Hall, one of the older buildings being used by the College of Ag. He tells Hays that it is not the classrooms that are the problem, but rather the labs and other research space that is out of date and limits what researchers on staff are able to accomplish. His hope is to address that issue in the next five to ten years.
You can hear Ron and Dr. Coon talk about his experiences in state to date- and what he sees ahead for Oklahoma agriculture and for the Division of Ag as it seeks to serve farmers and ranchers here in Oklahoma- and those nationally and even internationally as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below to hear their conversation.
By the way- Dr. Coon is pictured here talking with an OCA member after his presentation- and after the cattle organization had presented him with a brand new Cowboy Hat- a white one, so that he can always be seen as one of the good guys.
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