Darrell Blackwelder is director of the Rowan Cooperative Extension Center. Looks at some plants behind the Extenison office on Old Concord Road. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

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Darrell Blackwelder is director of the Rowan Cooperative Extension Center. Blackwelder looks at some plants behind the Extension Office on old Concord Road. Photo by Jon C. Lakey, Salisbury Post.

By Deirdre Parker Smith

dp1@salisburypost.com

Becoming the director of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service in Rowan County this June seemed like a natural progression for Darrell Blackwelder.

He’s spent most of his working life here, starting as a horticulture agent in 1979, fresh out of graduate school at Clemson University.

”It’s an easy fit for me,“ Blackwelder says. ”I’ve been here so long and I know so many people,“ he laughs. Some people think he works at the Salisbury Post because of his weekly columns in the Home & Garden section.

”And the staff was very supportive. I never would have done it if they hadn’t felt that way. I’ve been an agent for so many years and I know the staff and know how we all work together. I think that’s an asset.“

Blackwelder says his biggest challenge is balancing his role as horticulture agent and his role as director.

He is the go-to guy for questions on horticulture, both commercial and urban, forestry, field crops (there’s a vacancy in that area), pesticides, insects, diseases. He jokes that if it comes out of the ground, he’s supposed to be able to answer the question.

His other agents are Brad Johnson, who handles livestock; Toi Degree, consumer and family sciences; and Sara Drake, 4-H and youth.

In addition to the calls and e-mails the Post forwards him, Blackwelder gets anywhere between four and 40 calls or e-mails a day, depending on the season.

By 3 p.m. Tuesday, he’d already answered eight questions, and he wasn’t even in the office all day.

”Some people say you don’t need extension anymore, because of the Internet, but my calls haven’t diminished. The radio and newspaper help, but I still get calls from people wanting to confirm what I wrote or said.“

One of his constant efforts, as an agent, and now as director, is communication. Blackwelder loves the newspaper and is irritated when people complain that they don’t know about something.

”I tell them, ‘It was in the newspaper yesterday. You need to read the newspaper.’ “

Blackwelder believes there’s no excuse for not knowing where to go or who to ask about garden questions. But he does say a lot has changed in extension since he started. They used to have lots of file cabinets full of bulletins to send out on certain topics; now they’re empty. Everything is online.

Except the people.

”I can’t think of any other time when we’ve been called on more and have less resources,“ Blackwelder says.

The need is great — people want to start their own gardens, they’re concerned about nutrition, some insurance companies are mandating a certain health standard and people want to know how to eat healthier.

Schools need programs, and not just on healthy eating. Blackwelder says third-graders are learning about soils and need help from a group like extension, which uses research-based information to educate the public.

”We all work with youth now,“ Blackwelder says. ”Not just Sara and Toi, but all of us.“

He’s proud of the extensive youth programs developed through 4-H, most of which are funded through money raised by the 4-H members themselves, through plant sales and other activities.

He’s proud of the extensive participation of youth in the various livestock programs. Johnson has dairy judging teams, beef teams and more, many of which have won state awards.

Blackwelder follows Jim Cowden as director, who followed Amelia Watts, who had been an agent for many years before becoming director. She replaced Harold Caudill, who was director for at least 25 years.

He takes over at a time when extension has to worry about funding and voluntarily cut their request to the county, knowing there just wasn’t much to go around. Extension is funded half by the county and half by the state, but some of that state money comes from the federal government.

So it’s back to doing more with less.

The Master Gardeners are a big help, Blackwelder says, and do some of their own fundraisers. There are 44 Master Gardeners now and they can answer questions and lead programs around the county.

”It’s amazing to me how much we rely on volunteers for our day-to-day activities,“ Blackwelder says. ”We have more than 100 volunteers. We couldn’t keep operating without them. I don’t know of any other agency that relies so heavily on volunteers.“

Blackwelder also writes for grants, most of which are fairly small. One big grant, $60,000, is helping them build the Millbridge garden, along with the school system and health department. It will be used in teaching various subjects and as a demonstration area.

Contrary to popular belief, Blackwelder was not born here. He’s from Fort Mill, S.C., and has degrees from Wingate and Clemson universities and 16 hours of additional graduate work at N.C. State University. Extension is actually a program of N.C. State and is part of the university system. Agents are required to take a graduate level course every 5 years. He’s taken courses in plant diseases, insects and marketing.

”I really enjoy the marketing part,“ he says. He likes getting the word out.

He and wife Gerrie have been married for 24 years. She retired after a teaching career with Rowan-Salisbury Schools and is an avid Shakespeare fan.

Their dogs, Puck and Jip, have literary names, as all their dogs have. Puck is a character in Shakespeare’s ”A Midsummer Night’s Dream“ and Jip is from ”David Copperfield.“

Blackwelder and his wife enjoy live theater and go to plays here, in Charlotte and on Broadway. ”Wicked“ is a recent favorite. Blackwelder gardens a little at home, but doesn’t have much room. He also enjoys good food.

He’s made several trips overseas to teach about pesticides and marketing. He’s been to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as Egypt. Most of those programs, once sponsored by the United Nations and other international farm-aid groups, have been canceled because of unrest in the various countries.

His trip to Kyrgyzstan was especially eye-opening. ”They sell unmarked, used bottles full of pesticide in local open markets. No one knows what’s in it. I’d talk to a farmer with an old Coke bottle, pouring it on his tomatoes, and the bottle would say it was for corn. He didn’t care. It was what he could get.“

Other countries, he says, test their pesticides in places like Kyrgyzstan, where most people are desperately poor and have little education. ”And a lot of them have a lot of superstitious. ... I tried to bring them common sense sorts of things, but it was hard for them to understand and accept.“

He has better luck at home. ”There are a lot of ways that we can touch people,“ Blackwelder says of extension. ”Our goal is to provide research-based information for the citizens of Rowan County.“

He considers himself lucky in his job. ”There’s not many days I don’t want to come to work.“