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Extension: The story of people dedicated to helping others

May 30, 2026 • Kris Hiney, Robyn Stewart, Laura Beth Kenney • Season 8 • Episode 159

0:00 | 26:32

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In this episode, Robyn Stewart of University of Georgia Extension, and Laura Beth Kenney of Penn State Extension discuss just what extension has to offer. They share what drew them to the field and their favorite stories of helping others. If you are not reaching out to your county educator - do so today!

Questions? Please email: khiney@okstate.edu

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Kris Hiney: Welcome to Extension Horses Tack Box Talk series, Horse Stories with a Purpose. I'm your host, Dr. Kris Hiney with Oklahoma State University, and today we're going to be talking about what Extension really is. So, we know this podcast is produced by Extension Horses.

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Kris Hiney: But a lot of people are unfamiliar with all of the wonderful things that the Extension Service, or Cooperative Extension, does for people. So, with us today are two Extension educators slash agents. They talk about it differently in different states.

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Kris Hiney: But from the University of Georgia, we have Robyn Stewart, so welcome back, Robyn.

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Robyn Stewart: Thank you, it's good to be here.

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Kris Hiney: And then from Penn State, Laura Beth Kenney. So welcome back, Laura!

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Laura Beth Kenny: Thank you!

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Kris Hiney: Alright, you guys, so, both of you are more, local versus…

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Kris Hiney: state, so maybe talk about… yeah, and I know it's kind of mixed, and every state is a little bit different in the model of how they do extension. So, Laura, why don't you just start with, describing what your position is at Penn State?

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Laura Beth Kenny: Yeah, sure. So, I'm an Extension Educator, an equine extension educator, with Penn State. So, we operate on state teams.

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Laura Beth Kenny: where I'm located out in the counties, so I'm not at the main campus.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And we have an equine team of roughly 4 people. So, the four of us serve all of the equine clientele in the whole state. So, I basically have the eastern side of the state, my counterpart has the western side, and then our faculty and… our faculty member, which is the extension specialist.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And, an extension associate take the middle part of the state.

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Kris Hiney: Do you know how many of us are jealous that there are 4 e-coin extension people in Pennsylvania? Like, you guys are so, so lucky.

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Laura Beth Kenny: I know, and even then, it still feels like not enough. When we've got people, you know, emailing us during the busy season, hey, please help, come visit my farm.

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Kris Hiney: Gotcha. So, Robyn, tell us a little bit about what life is like, or what your position is, then, at UGA.

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Robyn Stewart: Sure, and I love that we're starting here, because the structure is so different everywhere you go, and I think that also can be very confusing to people who aren't familiar with the institutions.

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Robyn Stewart: Because here in Georgia, we operate a little bit differently, so my official title is the Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent, specifically for Lincoln County.

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Robyn Stewart: So, I serve a single county in Georgia, but I am not strictly equine. So, I do a lot of equine work, because that is my background and my passion, but I also cover everything else that is alive or dead and comes into my office. So, a lot of diversity of the job, which is very exciting.

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Robyn Stewart: But that we are a county-based system, so there is an ag agent in every county of Georgia

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Robyn Stewart: Throughout the state, and then we also have specialists at the state level that handle the subject area specific things. So we do work under an equine specialist to provide state-level guidance, to what we do, but I operate predominantly at the local and kind of regional level.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, so Georgia sounds more similar to Oklahoma, whereas I am the state specialist, or the one at the main institution, so to speak, and then we have county educators that are general, like you, Robyn, that have to cover everything, but then within individual counties.

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Kris Hiney: They may be lucky enough to have somebody that's really interested in horses, so that's a lot more similar to what we do.

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Laura Beth Kenny: I do think that's the more common structure for most states.

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Robyn Stewart: Hmm.

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Robyn Stewart: We're seeing some transition in Georgia, too, of we've got, a couple now of what we call area agents, and they are kind of specialty areas, so we've got, like, an area water agent, an area pecan agent, and then in South Georgia, we have an area livestock agent. So we have a couple of those starting to pop up, and I know that extension structure continues to be, like, a really big conversation about what do we do to maximize our reach with the resources

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Robyn Stewart: we have, but Georgia's very proud of their county

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Robyn Stewart: level, distribute, distribution system, excuse me. So, they're maintaining that as much as they can.

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Kris Hiney: Alright, so, again, I think the focus of what we wanted to share with listeners for this podcast is really, what Extension can do for them, and kinda, we're gonna do a little bit of day in the life of you guys.

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Kris Hiney: But it's… but we've listened to lots of educators over… over the years that we've been doing the podcast that talk about pastures and… and all kinds of different things.

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Kris Hiney: So, maybe… yeah, Laura, what… if… and they're in Pennsylvania, what do equine owners do, reach out, or how do you serve, or what is your role in providing education in Pennsylvania?

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Laura Beth Kenny: Yeah, we do a lot. I would say on a… On a direct basis.

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Laura Beth Kenny: People would see us when they come to our programs, so we offer many different educational programs, from pasture management to equine first aid to parasite control, and you pay a small fee, you come out, you attend the program, and you learn something new, and you take it back to your farm.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And then a lot of people that I meet that way would like me to come out and visit their farm and do a site visit to help them, usually with pasture management or hay testing, and so I can go out and give them personalized recommendations as well.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Even if it doesn't go as far as a site visit, we can take phone calls and answer your specific questions that way as well.

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Laura Beth Kenny: We reach out to the horse community through an email list. We have a website where we post, educational articles. Some of them are pretty in-depth.

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Laura Beth Kenny: We have videos, online courses.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And what was the other? Oh, we have a Facebook page where we market some of our programs and post educational content there as well.

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Laura Beth Kenny: That's most of what we do. I don't know, I feel like it changes every single day, so… I like to say there's no, like, average day in Extension. It's different every week, and it's different for every person.

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Kris Hiney: Robyn, how does that compare for a day in the life for you?

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Robyn Stewart: I think it's, at the state level, very similar, right? So we do very similar things. We have our client… our client contacts, where folks will call or email or, come into the office and visit with whoever their county agent may be. Of course, I love when they come see me with an equine background, but that's not always every client I see. But we do have the same kind of resource hubs

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Robyn Stewart: that Laura Beth does.

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Robyn Stewart: You know, we've got the website, we've got a newsletter that goes out, we've got educational programs throughout the state.

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Robyn Stewart: And then we kind of do that direct-to-client interpersonal interaction that I think is a lot of… adds a lot of value to our clients. For me personally, since I am a generalist, I reside in a county office, and so my day-to-day is predominantly handling whatever is coming into the office in terms of phone, email, etc, but I also offer a lot of educational programs, and many of those have been equine-focused.

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Robyn Stewart: As I mentioned, it is an area in Georgia that we're seeing a lot of need and a lot of interest in. Actually, that's part of what my dissertation work was on, was looking at educational needs here in the state. So, we're trying to kind of use that data to help,

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Robyn Stewart: Plan our projection for the next couple of years, and kind of plan what programming should look like for us.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, very good. So, I have some kind of just maybe fun questions here. So, one, how did you guys decide, or maybe it was… maybe it wasn't a decision, maybe it just came about, to actually seek a career in Extension?

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Laura Beth Kenny: Yeah, well, one thing that comes up a lot is that the equine industry doesn't really know what extension is.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And that was very true for me when I was graduating with my bachelor's, and I happened to be so lucky to have my advisor, when I was an undergraduate, be the Extension course specialist for New Jersey. It was at Rutgers. So when I went up to her and said, hey, I…

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Laura Beth Kenny: don't want to go to vet school, and I'm not sure what to do with this degree. She said, have you ever heard of Extension? And sort of got me started there, and I've loved it ever since.

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Robyn Stewart: I love it.

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Robyn Stewart: that. I think that's true of a lot of us in Extension. I, when I was finishing my master's program, had learned about Extension through a faculty member and did some interviews, but I actually went into sales for Purina for a couple of years before I came the Extension route, and ultimately that took me being, living many hours from home and kind of having this moment of, do I want to do this for 30 years, or is

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Robyn Stewart: this going to be my career, and kind of realizing that my heart wasn't in it. So I came to Extension after that, you know, six and a half years ago, and I tell people that I have no plans of going anywhere anytime soon, so I think many of us get that kind of interpersonal connection, and kind of once you hear about it or know of it, I think it's a great opportunity for a lot of people.

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Kris Hiney: So, what's your favorite thing about your job in Extension, then? We'll start with Laura again.

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Laura Beth Kenny: I would say my favorite thing to do is writing. I'm a huge writer, so I love writing articles on different topics. I think the thing that's most satisfying is when I can go on a farm visit or have a phone call with somebody and really help them.

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Laura Beth Kenny: You know, they're appreciative, they're thankful, and you know that the information that you gave them will make a difference in their horse's welfare, or, you know, their ease of farm management, or whatever.

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Robyn Stewart: Love that. I think that service is one of those things that you have to have a heart for if you're going to be an extension for any length of time. I think for me, a personal thing that I love about Georgian, specifically, is that

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Robyn Stewart: we are… have a lot of autonomy, and so I get to do a lot of different things, so from the educational side of teaching programs and giving lectures.

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Robyn Stewart: to that direct client interaction, to research and scholarship, and the sky's the limit here, and I really love that I've got such diversity and opportunity, and that allows me to really fuel my passion, particularly being in a smaller county, that sometimes those kind of side things that I get into really provide an avenue to keep me really fulfilled in my job, and I think that's really important.

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Kris Hiney: So, what kind of questions are the typical that you guys, facilitate horse owners helping them out, and has that changed at all over the years?

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Laura Beth Kenny: I would say my absolute most common questions around pasture management. I think that's partially because that is a common thing that Extension helps folks with, also partially because it's my background, it's what I'm good at, so I think eventually word gets out that Extension does have someone that can help with that.

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Laura Beth Kenny: So how to improve a pasture, how to control weeds. The second most common question I get is about sugars and non-structural carbohydrates in forages, general forage nutrition, that sort of thing.

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Kris Hiney: And do you think that has changed at all over the years, or it's been pretty much same-same?

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Laura Beth Kenny: It's been pretty consistent for me, personally.

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Kris Hiney: All right, Robyn, same question. What are the questions you usually get? And again, I know you're diverse across all kinds of different species in ag and natural resources, but you can still kind of concentrate on the horse side. What's the most common things that you hear about?

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, I get the similar pasture management questions, like Laura Beth said. I think that we have a lot of,

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Robyn Stewart: recommendations on, like, local social media pages and things like that, where if somebody's asking about pasture management, that we are often a recommendation to them, which is fabulous. So we do get a lot of that. That's probably the entry point that I see people use when they kind of first contact Extension. I've done a lot of nutrition work here in Georgia, and just in my career, and so I actually get quite a bit of nutrition questions as well.

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Robyn Stewart: A lot of times coming from programs that I've taught. So, that's definitely more of my wheelhouse, and that really hasn't changed a whole lot. I think I get maybe more frequent questions on the nutrition front now that I've been doing it a while and kind of have that reputation for it.

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Robyn Stewart: But pasture management still, I think, is probably our most common horse owner question, and kind of the starting point for them to kind of realize what we can't help with, and what we've got ability to do.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. So, since pasture management is the same hot topic of interest across, you guys.

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Kris Hiney: What are the commonalities? I'm assuming… I probably already know the answer to this, but I'm gonna let you guys answer. So, what are the largest problems that horse owners typically have with pasture management?

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Laura Beth Kenny: I can pinpoint most problems down to two main categories, soil fertility and overgrazing, or grazing management.

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Laura Beth Kenny: So, usually, they don't know about soil testing, so I can introduce them to that concept, and how to know how much lime and fertilizer you need to put down.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And then the other, more difficult thing to approach is grazing management. You know, if you've got 8 horses on 1 acre.

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Laura Beth Kenny: there's not much you can do. But, you know, talking about different ways to…

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Laura Beth Kenny: Rotate horses around a farm, maybe subdivide pastures, anything you can do to give those grasses a little break.

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Laura Beth Kenny: tends to help a lot. Not always possible on these horse farms, so…

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Laura Beth Kenny: Every single phone call I get is, like, a different puzzle, a different challenge to solve.

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Kris Hiney: Okay. Is that the same thing you have to deal with, Robyn?

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. The fertility and pH, and then, you know, I also get a lot of, like.

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Robyn Stewart: we don't get the pasture management questions when they're, like, just starting out and we're trying to develop a plan. We get the questions when it's a crisis, unfortunately, and so a lot of it is trying to help educate and orient owners that

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Robyn Stewart: Solving a lot of your pasture issues is not going to be a quick or easy fix, and that it does take some really deliberate attention to detail over a period of time.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Absolutely.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, overgraving is not easy to fix overnight, unless you just don't have horses anymore.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Rotate the corn!

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Robyn Stewart: you know.

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Kris Hiney: Okay, so, so I'm just gonna, again, keep with the fun questions for a while. What is the most…

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Kris Hiney: Try to think about your clients and experiences in the past. What is the most satisfying problem you've ever solved?

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Kris Hiney: And what was the… And I might give you a little time to think about this, what was the one that you were like, I can't even believe they're doing this?

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Robyn Stewart: I have those right off the top of my head.

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Kris Hiney: Alright, we'll let you go first.

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Robyn Stewart: I have a client that called me, gosh, she's been coming to stuff for 2 or 3 years now. She's been a consistent client for us, and she is wonderful. But she called me a number of years ago with her horse that was extraordinarily obese, and she was like, what do I do? So we got this horse on a plan, and he is doing great, and I see her at least once a year, and every time I'm like, how's he doing? And he's doing

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Robyn Stewart: fabulously, and she's over the moon. So, one of those circumstances where it was more of a nutrition consult that got to implement some plans for them, and really kind of paid off long-term, and she's getting to just enjoy her horse, and feeling like she's doing the right things, which are really wonderful. So, she's one that I always,

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Robyn Stewart: I always think of as kind of that extension success story, where we've got this kind of ongoing relationship, and we were able to be helpful to a problem she saw.

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Robyn Stewart: The more challenging one is actually not a client from Georgia, they were from Florida, but they, I could not help them understand that they were feeding fodder, so they were growing hydroponic barley fodder, and they were feeding it as, like, their primary forage source.

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Robyn Stewart: And I could not convince them that even if you said, like.

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Robyn Stewart: 20 pounds of fodder, the dry matter of that is not substantial enough to sustain their horse. And they told me I didn't know what I was doing, and they were going to call somebody else. And I said, great, go ahead.

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Kris Hiney: Awesome.

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Robyn Stewart: That was a challenging one that, you know, I tried to explain, like, dry matter and water content, and it just was not, they were not receptive to that feedback.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, cause, whoa, it would take, what, 60, 80 pounds?

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Robyn Stewart: Exactly.

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Kris Hiney: That you'd have to lift up? You know, I'm just picturing, like.

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Kris Hiney: Wow, that would be a big…

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Kris Hiney: grow house, or… I don't really know how you do it. I assume you stack it up or something, but…

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Robyn Stewart: And it's a cool idea, like, I understand why people like the idea of it, but the practicality of feeding it as the primary part of your forage ration is just not there for me. So, that was an interesting one.

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Kris Hiney: I'm with you on that one. All right, Laura, have you thought of your two stories?

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Laura Beth Kenny: One for sure, I have my success story that always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. There was a…

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Laura Beth Kenny: Manager of a… Equine Assisted Services.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Organization who wanted some help with her pastures.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And honestly, most of the people that I visit, they don't really follow up. We get all of our questions out of the way, but I never really find out if it worked for them, or if they even followed my advice. And so, this person in particular has followed up and keeps in touch every single year, and she has me out, and I can see the improvement in her fields, and how she's

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Laura Beth Kenny: Taken all of my advice, and she's so, so pleased at how her fields look.

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Laura Beth Kenny: So that was definitely one of my best success stories that makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

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Laura Beth Kenny: And then we got a lot of challenging calls,

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Laura Beth Kenny: Some of our most challenging calls are toxic plant or horse illness, so we're not veterinarians, so we have to make sure people are working with their vets when something weird happens and their horse gets sick, and if the vet can't figure it out, they say, well, it's gotta be a plant in the field.

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Laura Beth Kenny: So then we're called to look through the field, and there's an awful lot of toxic plants that I see in almost every horse pasture that I go in, and I very rarely can find anything that I can point to as saying, yeah, this was definitely the cause of what made your horse sick. It's just, you're sort of the last

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Laura Beth Kenny: consideration there, and it's… it's not always gonna work.

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Laura Beth Kenny: So those are… those are my big challenges.

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Kris Hiney: Okay.

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Kris Hiney: All right, well, what else should we cover, you guys? Because we're trying to educate the public about what you guys do, and that…

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Kris Hiney: people like us exist in every state. Not every state has an equine specialist at the state level, but every state has county educators or area educators that can help solve their problems. So, what is your big take-home message you want people to know about Extension?

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Laura Beth Kenny: I would say…

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Laura Beth Kenny: Obviously, the horse program is there for you, and if you've got questions about pretty much anything, you can give us a call, and we are cooperative extension, as in, we don't know the answer to every question, but we have a huge network of people that we can

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Laura Beth Kenny: ask or point you towards or give you, you know, recommendations and references, but also that we cover so much more than just horses or livestock or agronomy. You know, in Pennsylvania, I think we have 9 different programs that ranges from

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Laura Beth Kenny: regular, what you'd consider agriculture to horticulture, Christmas trees, human nutrition, community development, youth development is the 4-H branch of.

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Laura Beth Kenny: extension, so check it out! You know, even if this is not of interest to you, I'm sure there's something. Master Gardeners, they talk all about different gardening

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Laura Beth Kenny: flowers, native plants, vegetable gardening, like, there is so much you can learn from Extension.

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah, I would echo that. One thing I would also let people know is that most of the time, at least here in Georgia, much of what we do is free to the public.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Probably.

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Robyn Stewart: You're already paying for it through your taxes, so usually there's no fee for a farm call, like, you can call us or email us, like, we're not going to charge you to help you, so make sure that you use us, because you're already paying for us when you pay your taxes. So you already are paying into the system. And we do want to help you. As Laura Beth said, there's such a diversity of things that we cover. It's not just horses.

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Robyn Stewart: basically anything. I tell people, if it's alive in you.

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Robyn Stewart: If it's alive and you want it dead, or dead and you want it alive, with the exception of human beings, you can call me.

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Kris Hiney: I don't do anything.

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Robyn Stewart: people, okay? But, for the most part, for me, that covers everything, because it's everything from

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Robyn Stewart: homeowner pests, and weeds, and landscape plants, and turf grass, and forestry, and water, and you name it, I've probably touched it in the past, and we really have something to offer everybody, and I know Laura Beth said that, but it is something that I think is really important to recognize. And then, on the equine front, and especially here in Georgia, one thing I'd be really encouraging of is don't get discouraged, and

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Robyn Stewart: be persistent, because I sometimes hear

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Robyn Stewart: Of a client who will call an agent that maybe doesn't have equine background, or… Who doesn't have

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Robyn Stewart: doesn't seem to feel as enthusiastic about the equine questions, and I would encourage you to just continue to look for the resources in your state that are tied to the area. So if you Google, like, UGA Equine Extension, you'll find a list of people that this is a passion area for us, and this is really what we do, and you're welcome to contact us directly, and we can loop in

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Robyn Stewart: your county agent in, but I have heard stories about how some county agents are either not livestock people or not horse people, and sometimes I think that horse owners get that, kind of

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Robyn Stewart: the feeling that they are not welcome in that office, and that's never the case, but I certainly want to make sure that you understand that there are people in the state who want to help you and who would be overjoyed to get your phone call, so feel free to contact those of us that are on the equine group, individually if you'd like to.

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Kris Hiney: Yeah, and I would, you know, reiterate, you know, both things that you guys said. Definitely, like, even if your county educator is not the horse person, but if you ask them those questions, they feed it up the chain to those that have that horse specialty. So, yes, absolutely, feel free to contact your county person, no matter what.

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Kris Hiney: And then I also wanted to reiterate what Laura said, that a lot of what we do is free, so videos, newsletters, fact sheets, all of that, regular information is free.

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Kris Hiney: Yes, we do charge fees for some things, but those are typically ones that have cost to us that we have to make sure that we… that we pay the bills, and so, while there's a lot of stuff that's free, some of it is fee-based, but there's a reason that may not be immediately transparent to everybody, because some things have a cost, so…

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Robyn Stewart: Yeah. Can I also mention, we are based on the need of our clients, so if there is something specific that you need information on, or if you want an educational program to cover something specific.

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Robyn Stewart: please let us know, because if we don't know, we can't meet that need. So even if it's email, a phone call, whatever that looks like, let us know what you're interested in, and to our ability, we will meet that need if we can't.

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Laura Beth Kenny: Absolutely, definitely want to echo that. We did a client needs assessment a few years ago, where we did a big online Qualtrics survey, to try to figure out what

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Laura Beth Kenny: what you guys want. So if… if you don't see something like that in your area, yeah, let your county educator know, or your county agent.

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Kris Hiney: Okay?

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Kris Hiney: Well, thank you guys for, joining me today. Often the summer is a busy season in Extension. You guys don't have a youth appointment, I do, so that's why summer's get a little…

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Kris Hiney: a little busier, there's a lot of horse shows and activities that we do in the summer, but, really appreciate your time. Again, encourage everybody to really reach out in your state to see what Extension can do for you. We're all great people, right, or we wouldn't be doing this. So, again, appreciate your time. And this has been another episode of our Tech Box Talk, Horse Stories with a Purpose.

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Kris Hiney: Yay!