President Capilouto recognizes efforts of UK Cooperative Extension in Eastern Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 25, 2022) — University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto wrote the following piece on the efforts of UK Cooperative Extension in the wake of the devastating floods in Eastern Kentucky 

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During the 1920s in Eastern Kentucky, “home demonstration agents,” precursors to today’s family and consumer agents, traveled by road mules and horses with saddle packs, filled with food and pots and pans hanging off them, through rough hills and hollers.

They taught home canning skills and other essential means to prepare non-perishable foods long before grocery stores were commonplace.

Some 100 years later, they traveled by horseback again.

On the first day alone, they traveled almost 30 miles.

Through hills and hollers, near washed-out culverts and with mudslides happening all around, it was the only way to reach some victims of the Eastern Kentucky floods.

Day after day, members of the Breathitt County Horseman’s Association — part of Breathitt County Cooperative Extension — helped deliver badly needed supplies … medications and food … baby supplies and bottled water.

There are some places, in the most challenging of circumstances and the most grueling of landscapes, that vehicles and ATVs simply can’t reach.

Horseback was the only answer.

We provided it.

Said one rider: “Sometimes, it was like a nightmare, and you just kept going back each day. There was never a question about going back, or even any time to be sad or worried. It happened, and everybody just got together to push forward each day.”

There was never a question about … going … back.

As always, our extension agents and volunteers have been servant leaders, ambassadors of hope for UK and our state.

Volunteers from the Pendleton County Extension office — dubbed by their leader Lindie Huffman as the “bucket brigade” — gathered 156, five-gallon buckets with cleaning supplies and personal hygiene products to distribute in impacted areas in Knott County. 

Two of our agents in Knott County, Dora Centers and Chad Conway, lost property in the flooding. Another, Lori Adams, held operations together, even though she had only been on the job for three weeks.

The effort extended into 1,000 hot meals that could be distributed, with the help of the Jessamine County Beef Cattle Association.

“Extension is all about meeting the needs of the community,” said one agent. “It doesn’t matter what their needs were … it’s about what they need right now …”

Two efforts by extension among dozens of others throughout the region during this time of unimaginable loss, and indescribable need, yet always, from somewhere and so often from our people, a deep reservoir of resolve and harbingers of hope. 

That ethos of meeting need wherever it exists is part of who and what our extension service is. 

But that culture can be seen throughout our campus. It permeates the place:

A student-run program working to assess and refurbish equipment …  Medical clinics figuring out who needed — and how to deliver — vaccines and shots … Historians and librarians racing to save archival histories … Staff reaching out to more than 1,100 students and working directly with more than two dozen from the region with pressing needs … Millions of dollars raised by our basketball team and others to go toward relief efforts.

Wherever there has been a need, our people have been there.

And when answers were in seemingly short supply, we found creative ways to provide essential help.

This is who we are. 

This is what we do.

Because sometimes, preparing to advance Kentucky — our most solemn and sacred mission — means simply taking care of the most basic needs during the most trying of times.

It should serve as a reminder as well that there is a long road to recovery for the Appalachian region, just as there will be a long road back for much of Western Kentucky in the aftermath of storms last year.

Make no mistake: We will be travelers and partners on the road back. 

And we have proven that whatever that takes — whether rebuilding research farms or traveling by horseback in corners and crevices of our state too difficult for most to reach — we will do it. 

We will be there — with buckets and horses, hearts and healing hands. We will be there.

We also must be partners for progress as we look toward the future.