During the late spring of 2018 the Clark County Ag Advisory Council met to discuss past meetings, new membership, and upcoming ANR programing for the year. It was during this meeting that members of the council had the idea to restructure the way annual Clark County Extension Summer Field Day would be conducted. In this brainstorming process it was decided that instead of an all day Saturday program, the field day would be broken up into smaller evening meetings and would be given the name “Summer School” to complement the “Winter School” ANR program that has been here in the county for many years.

At this point the planning process began. It had been several years since a program had focused on beef genetics in Clark County. The council decided to go this route and Dr Bullock, University of Kentucky Beef Specialist spoke on improving herd genetics through sire selection. Given this topic, it worked out very well that we were able to utilize Solid Rock Angus farm, a Black Angus seed stock farm for our meeting venue. In addition to Dr Bullock, the 80+ participants were able to gather knowledge from a local farmer about his artificial insemination program, and myself on fall pasture and grazing tips, including Johnson grass concerns that came in very handy later in the year.

This “Summer School” field day was a great chance for myself, University specialist, the Ag Advisory Council, the Clark County Cattleman’s, and a very large-scale local producer to work together to put on a great meeting. Perhaps the “Summer School” program will become just as much of a Clark County tradition as “Winter School”.