President s Challenge Karen Bixler

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1 ESPA 2018 Summer Newsletter President s Challenge Karen Bixler Thanks so much for entrusting me as your incoming President for the year. I m super excited to be hosting the upcoming conference in Fairhope, AL with the assistance of Sandra Walton. I want to encourage each of you to continue to recruit new members as you are ESPA s own personal advertisement. Our 2019 conference will be held in Fairhope, Alabama. You will love the small town feeling when you drive through downtown Fairhope to arrive at the host hotel, Hampton Inn. We will be 2 miles from the water which has a wonderful view and a long pier you can walk on. The theme for this year s conference is VISION and each person who attended the conference received a pair of sunglasses to help them remember ESPA s Vision for our 2019 conference. Valuable Information Serving Identifying Organizing Needs Professional development workshops are being worked on as we speak and will be updated soon. Our annual banquet and auction will be held at the gorgeous Oak Hollow Farms. What a gorgeous facility this is and very rustic, and will be casual business attire. Stay tuned as we develop, plan, and execute the 2019 conference. I know you will love coming to Fairhope and seeing what it all has to offer! Inside this issue Past President's Remarks... 2 Fundraising... 3 Membership... 4 Service Project.4 Birthdays.. 5 New Member Highlight.5 Board Members and Reps 6

2 Past President s Remarks Elaine Densmore Greetings again from Chilton County! I m thrilled so many of you attended the conference and I hope you took back to your counties lots of information and inspiration. It was great to have four new members attending the conference and five retirees that attended the awards banquet and auction. It was an honor and pleasure to work with a dedicated executive committee. It takes everyone doing their part to have a successful conference and I appreciate each and every one of you! Thank you for letting me, Gay West, our Regional Extension Agents, our Master Gardeners and our Research Station employees share Chilton County and their expertise with you. We hope you enjoyed the workshops and gained something from them. It was a pleasure to serve as President this year and I look forward to meeting with you next year in Fairhope! Karen Bixler officially became President on June 1! Best Wishes Tana! Tana Shealey has taken another position with Extension as the new CEC for Lowndes County. She begins this new chapter in her life on Monday, July 2. Although we will miss Tana as an ESPA Sister, we are super excited about her new endeavor. I know that she will bring life and laughter to the Lowndes County Extension Office. The Autauga County Extension Office held a small reception for her on June 27, 2018, and Elaine Densmore and I were able to attend on behalf of ESPA and wish her the best of luck in her new career. Her quote was once an admin, always an admin. Tana, may your bubbly personality touch lives wherever you go! ESPA will miss you but Lowndes County is gaining a wonderful colleague with a heart for Extension.

3 Fairhope Pier Fountain and Rose Garden Fundraising Thanks to everyone who helped with the fundraising efforts of ESPA for the year. Due to your efforts, we were able to raise the following money for ESPA to help with the conference expenses this past May in Clanton. Auction $1, Yeti Cooler and Tumbler giveaway Brought in $729.00, we spent $ making a profit of $ Thanks again to those who collected donations for the yeti give-away, donated items, and purchased items.

4 Membership Drive Karen Bixler Angie Moore As this year s membership drive came to an end, I want to thank all the District Reps and ESPA Members for assisting with it this year and doing an outstanding job. Thanks again to everyone who helped in this endeavor of the Membership Drive. The new members were recognized at our annual conference, May 16-18, 2018 in Chilton County. Public Art at Orange Street Pier Public Art at the Fairhope Library We had 2 new members join this year because of the effort of the membership drive and two who joined prior to the membership drive. Out of the 2 winners, we drew for free conference registration and that went to Lisa McCullough, Chilton Co Research Center. Ronald McDonald House Service Project The drink tabs you donated for the Ronald McDonald House are helping this family & many more stay close to the hospital as they go through the battle of their lives. Thank you for your kindness & support. (Their baby Lillian, 4 lbs. 1 oz., arrived on June 13 healthy and beautiful, but they are still in the Ronald McDonald House until she is healthy enough for them to go home.) Please continue to collect tabs for next year. Also, we will collect and bring items from this Wish List to be donated to the Ronald McDonald House.

5 Birthdays June Rita Dunn-Bibb-6/25 Vicky Yarbrough-Lee-6/29 July Beth Glasscock-Cullman-7/1 Brandy Phillips-Choctaw-7/2 Sonia Gamble-Franklin - 7/19 Celia Fabery-Morgan-7/29 August Emma Thornton-Cullman-8/7 Diane Anthony-Mobile-8/20 Stacey Ferguson-Washington-8/20 Sandra Walton-Baldwin-8/21 Karen Bixler-Montgomery-8/30 Christina Leonard-Marengo-8/30 September Susan Coke-Colbert-9/1 Cornelia Tuck-Coosa-9/8 Mitzi Moran-AU Retired-9/16 I encourage you to answer the following questions: How do you SEE yourself within ESPA? How do you SEE yourself within Extension? How do you SEE your goals for ESPA? How do you SEE your goals for ESPA? -Karen Bixler, ESPA President New Member Highlight Lisa McCullough I have been married to Jason for 24 years and have one son, Sam, who is 11 years old. We have two dogs, Skeeter and Willie Nelson. I grew up in Chilton County, but moved away for about 18 years and lived in Austin, Texas. We moved back home a little over 4 years ago to be closer to family. It was important to me for my son to grow up in a small town like I did and there is no better place than Clanton, Alabama. I began my career with Chilton County Extension as a NEP/SNAP-Ed agent in August of As a NEP Agent Assistant, I covered two counties, Chilton and Bibb. In November of 2017, I had the opportunity to move to the Chilton Research and Extension Center as the Administrative Associate. My entire career was spent doing administrative work beginning with the Chilton County Board of Education and a fifteen year career as a legal assistant/ paralegal. My father was a farmer and sold produce, so I have a passion for helping our local farmers. Therefore, the CREC was a perfect fit for me. August 2018 will mark my 4 th year with Extension and I love it. I wish I had discovered the Alabama Cooperative Extension years ago. I love what we stand for and what we do here at Extension. Helping others is what I am passionate about, whether it is teaching Nutrition Education to children or helping farmers produce better crops because Chilton County Peaches and produce are TOPS!

6 Executive Board Members President Karen Bixler Secretary Vicky Yarbrough Vice President Sandra Walton Treasurer Brandy Phillips President Elect TBA Parliamentarian Sherry Kelley District Representatives District I Randi Wright, Cherokee District VI Deborah Crawford, Houston District II Helen Drake, Jefferson District VII Brandy Phillips, Choctaw District III Shannon Murray, Lawrence District VIII Lisa McCullough, Chilton District IV Laurie Howe, Randolph District V Kathy Dunlevy, Russell District IX Diane Anthony, Mobile