Farthest North Forest Fest set for Oct. 6 at UAF

A competitor at the 2017 Forest Fest works a bow saw.

Who will be the next Bull of the Woods and Belle of the Woods?

Come to the 21st annual Farthest North Sports Festival on Oct. 6 and find out, or better yet, compete.

Students and community members 18 and older are invited to try their hand at old-time logging sports, such as ax throwing, log rolling, bow saw and crosscut sawing, fire building and birling. Birling involves staying upright longer than your competitor on a floating log in the lake.

Balancing on the plastic birling "log" is a challenge.

The event at UAF is free and beginners are welcomed. People may compete as individuals, but are encouraged to form teams of four to six. At the end of the day, awards will be given to individuals, teams and the top male and female competitors. Observers are welcomed, but pets must be kept on a leash.

Students and faculty with the School of Natural Resources and Extension developed the competition as a way to commemorate old-time logging festivals — and to have a good time.

The Forest Fest begins at 10 a.m. at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm fields, across from the Georgeson Botanical Garden. At 1 p.m., the games move to Ballaine Lake. Refreshments will be available and donations are welcome.  A warming fire and some grilled food will be available at the lake.

Participants are advised to dress warmly and to bring a change of clothes if they want to try birling. For more information, contact Dave Valentine at dvalentine@alaska.edu or 907-474-7614.

Registration opens for Women in Agriculture Conference

  

Registration is open for the 2018 Women in Agriculture Conference. The one-day virtual gathering on Oct. 27 will take place at four Alaska locations this year — in Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Palmer and Soldotna.

The event will include 34 sites in Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Speakers will address this year’s theme, “Pump up your Financial Fitness.”

The program will begin at 7:30 a.m. in Alaska. The featured speakers will be Robin Reid and LaVell Windsor, who will present “How does your cash flow,” and Sarah Beth Aubrey, whose keynote speech is titled “Attention Women: You are a Valuable Part of Agriculture.” She will talk about prioritizing and about new research that shows the value women bring to the farm.

Register at http://womeninag.wsu.edu/. The early bird fee until Oct. 14 is $30; registration will be $35 after that date. The conference fee includes the workshop, a light breakfast, lunch and conference materials.

Alaska locations will include:

 •  Fairbanks, University of Alaska Fairbanks Murie Building, Room 103-105

 •  Delta Junction, Delta Career Advancement Center, 1696 Clearwater Ave.

 •  Soldotna, Kenai River Center, 514 Funny River Road

 •  Palmer, Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center, 1509 S. Georgeson Drive

SNRE will host the event in Fairbanks and the Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center is co-hosting the event with Alaska Farmland Trust. The Kenai and Salcha-Delta Soil and Water Conservation Districts will host the event in Soldotna and Delta Junction.

This is the fourth year the conference has taken place in Alaska. See the story on the 2017 event. More than 50 women attended at three sites.

SNRE students awarded scholarships for 2018-2019

Congratulations to undergraduate students with the School of Natural Resources and Extension who received scholarships for the coming year.

The scholarships range from $600 to $3,200.  A SNRE scholarship committee recommends students for the scholarships based on their criteria, and UAF notifies the students. The recipients are:

Grace Nelson: Mike Hoyt Society of American Foresters Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to outstanding natural resources management students. The scholarship honors Mike Hoyt, a forester who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UAF and was widely respected in the forestry community.

Amber Fryze-Newsome: Walt Begalka Memorial Scholarship.  The scholarship is awarded to outstanding natural resources management students. The Society of American Foresters Dixon Entrance Chapter established the scholarship to assist forestry students.

Jessica Landry: Society of American Foresters/Richard W. and Margery Tindall Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to outstanding natural resources management students at UAF. The society established this scholarship to honor Richard Tindall and to assist forestry students. Margery Tindall’s name was later added to the scholarship.

Trevor Schoening: Paul and Flora Greimann Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship is awarded to outstanding juniors and seniors with the School of Natural Resources and Extension but agriculture students are preferred.  Greimann was a businessman and former state senator who operated a bus between Fairbanks and the university for 22 years, beginning in 1931.

Trevor Schoening: Richard E. Lee Scholarship.  The scholarship is awarded to outstanding engineering or natural resources management students. A bequest from Richard E. Lee established the scholarship for mining engineering or environmental science upperclassmen who have graduated from Alaska high schools.

New director starts job at Matanuska Experiment Farm

Jodie Anderson

Jodie Anderson is the new director of the Matanuska Experiment Farm and Extension Center near Palmer.

Anderson started her new job Aug. 20. As director, she will provide leadership for the academic, research and Cooperative Extension Service outreach programs based at the facility, which is part of  the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Anderson has a varied background in agriculture and natural resources. Most recently, she served as program coordinator for the Division of Agriculture’s Farm to School Program and worked with farmers, nonprofit organizations and others to bring local food to schools and public food service distributors. Anderson has also worked as a soil scientist, researched potato viruses, and taught high school and college biology, and gardening and composting classes.  As a doctoral student with the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences (now SNRE), she studied fish waste as an option for composting and soil building.

 “I’m sort of a jack-of-all-trades,” she said.

The university’s Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station encompasses the experiment farms in Palmer and in Fairbanks. Experiment Station Director Milan Shipka said that he is happy to have someone with strong experience in a variety of areas, who knows the community, the university and the Palmer center.

“She has some very good ideas that will help develop the Matanuska Experiment Farm,” he said.

Anderson said she looks forward to working with the community and hopes to strengthen agricultural and natural resources research by partnering with other agencies.

Anderson grew up in Michigan and North Carolina, but she has lived in Palmer since 2003. In her spare time, she and her husband run a catering business and she likes to barbecue and grill, fish, hike and do other outdoor activities.

She says she has made it her personal mission to improve Alaska barbecue standards “one pork shoulder at a time.” She was part of a team of four, including her husband and two friends, who won the Alaska Seafood Showdown last week at the Alaska State Fair by grilling Asian-inspired steamed clams, cod and marinated shrimp with Alaska-grown vegetables. Anderson may be reached at jmanderson@alaska.edu or 907-746-9466.