It’s a pretty general offer of congratulations, but I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t an even deeper meaning in the Michigan Farm Bureau “welcome mat” laid out for Fred Poston the just-appointed Dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.   There could indeed be a meaning deeper and more heartfelt that it appears on the surface.  In more than one of the general sessions about a year ago at the Annual Meeting of Michigan Farm Bureau, there were more than just a few expressions of disappointment at the direction in which the University - - the Pioneer Land Grant institution in the nation, has been headed.  Fred Poston was CANR Dean before all this started coming down - - 1991 to 1998.
       
Many changes have been undertaken, of course, but I’m virtually certain the complaints of a year ago were based on the new direction of the Cooperative Extension Service - - a direction that many of us feel does not serve local communities and farm operations in the ways of the “County Agent.”  Indeed, there is no longer a County-based Cooperative Extension Director, anywhere in Michigan.  Here and there, one might find an individual coming pretty close to that kind of service, but by-and-large, It’s definitely “not your father’s Cooperative Extension Service” any more.

I can’t imagine MSU will be doing an about-face and going back to the way things used to be, but it is just barely possible, as I see it, that some elements of the way things were done just a few years ago, could be employed now.   They would, of course, have to be woven into the newer way of doing things.  Poston should have little trouble seeing how that might be advantageous and also possible.  When he was CANR dean in the ‘90s, he developed the Partnership for Research and Management with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
       

Poston is presently serving out his last few weeks as Vice President for MSU finance and operations.  He’ll assume his new/old job on January First
       
Poston is well-founded in matters of Cooperative Extension Services.  Before signing on at East Lansing, he was director of Washington State University’s Cooperative Extension Service, and associate dean of agriculture and home economics.  Before that, he was on the entomology faculty at Kansas State University and was associate director of the Kansas Cooperative Extension Service.
       
No need to welcome him - - he’s already here.  He’s already been officially warmly welcomed by Michigan Farm Bureau President Wayne Wood - - it’ll be interesting to see how the old-timers very much involved in and dependent on Production Agriculture will accommodate and be accommodated by, this Michigan Land Grant Mission{ary}

Karl Guenther is a retired farm broadcaster at WKZO and can be reached atkhguenther@charter.net. He is a member of Michigan Farm Bureau and an emeritus member of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting.