Barren County is home to 61,517 acres of forestland of which 82% is privately owned. Barren County served as a host for the 2020 Woodland Stewards Webinar Series that took place on February 6, 13, 20, 27, and March 5. Each webinar began at 6 PM CDT and concluded by 7:30 PM CDT. The webinars were distributed via Zoom. This regional webinar series was a follow-up to the series conducted in February and March of the previous year. The “Getting To Know Your Woodlands: Next Steps Webinar Series” targeted Kentucky’s private woodland owners, to further their plans and knowledge, as well as, Kentucky Master Loggers in need of certification credit to help them continue learning more about their field of work. It was a partnership of UK Forestry Extension and numerous Forestry Extension Units from other nearby universities and the Southern Region Extension Forestry team.

In Barren County, the Horticulture extension agent served as the local host for four evenings, with the Program Assistant hosting the first session, of the web-based educational programming using the ZOOM platform. The series provided educational programing for landowners and Kentucky Master Loggers.

During the series, 11 different people attended all or part of the series. Of the participants, six were Kentucky Master Loggers and a total of 30 educational hours were awarded to help them maintain their certification. Each of them on separate occasions thanked the Barren County Horticulture Agent for hosting this opportunity. One of the Kentucky Master Loggers stated, “If you hadn’t hosted these I would have had to drive 2 hours each week to get my certification hours. You saved me a lot of time and money. It is nice that we have this technology now also to make it easier on the speakers for their own travel costs.”