UCCE centennial celebration kindles media coverage

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Front page of the Fresno Bee on May 9, 2014.

UC Cooperative Extension yesterday celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Smith-Lever Act, the law passed in 1914 that created an organization to connect the gap between university research and people who can put it to use. A key part of the celebration was a Day of Science and Service, UC's largest-ever citizen science project.

The centennial anniversary and citizen science project spurred numerous media outlets to run articles telling the story of UC Cooperative Extension. A running list of centennial and Day of Science and Service articles, with nearly 50 links, can be found on the centennial website. Here are a few of the highlights:

The Fresno Bee ran a large photo by John Walker with a caption about the Fresno County celebration on the front page of the newspaper. Ten additional photos and a video were posted on the Fresno Bee website. The story also ran on the Modesto Bee website.
Reporter Elizabeth Case wrote a profile about the centennial and the 22-year career of UCCE advisor Rachel Long for the Davis Enterprise. Farm advisors are like doctors who make house calls to crops, the story said, answering questions about pests, illness and irrigation — though sometimes the cure takes years of study.
Modesto Bee reporter John Holland used UCCE historical photos to anchor his centennial story. "A photo from the early days shows a farm advisor in a suit, tie and fedora as he visits a swine farm in San Joaquin County," reads the story's lead. Stanislaus County Farm Bureau President Ron Peterson told the reporter, "The research they do is just invaluable to us."
The Santa Cruz Sentinel's Donna Jones joined a tour of the local agricultural industry on the centennial anniversary. At Prevedelli Farms, Sam Lathrop credited Mark Bolda, UCCE advisor and county director in Santa Cruz County, with cutting through political hysteria around light brown apple moth by bringing science to the forefront of the discussion. "Without his (light brown apple moth) program, we would be here under quarantine at all times," Lathrop said.
The focus was on counting pollinators in Janis Mara's article in the Marin Independent Journal. "Our food depends on pollination. Some of it is windblown but we mostly rely on pollinators like bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, moths, bats and flies," said Anne-Marie Walker, one of the UCCE Master Gardeners.