Personal Column

Being a rural county with many residents employed in outlying industrial areas, citizens may not have the ability to contact the Extension Office for credible agricultural information and rely on local newspaper coverage to stay informed.  To keep citizens informed about agriculture, horticulture, and other local topics of interest, Estill County Agriculture Agent Eric Baker submits weekly articles to two local newspapers, The Estill County Tribune and Citizen’s Voice & Times. The Estill County Tribune is delivered Wednesday and Citizen’s Voice & Times on Thursday. Articles contain meeting announcements and various agriculture educational pieces that are research-based, timely, and localized.  Periodically, photo highlights of related Extension events are clustered near the agents’ column.  The column contains 500-900 words, with sufficient length to address the topic. Submissions are emailed in Microsoft Outlook to the newspapers each week.  The Estill County Tribune reports circulation of 1,794 issues weekly and Citizen’s Voice & Times 3,257 issues weekly.  Increased contacts and numerous positive comments have been received as a result of citizens reading the agent’s column.