It’s been seven months since Barton County Extension had it’s own Ag agent.  This week, just in time to get her bearings at the start of the planting season, Alicia Boor arrived from Sedgewick county to take over the reins of that position, and she’s excited to be here.  It turns out, Boor and her husband, Richard Todd Boor, have plenty of ties in the area.  Her father, Dennis Brauer, grew up in Great Bend, and worked at the Ellinwood Packing Plant in high school.  Her mother-in-law, Corrine Boor (Hartig) also worked there.  She now lives in Hoisington, where Richard was born and raised.  Boor’s grandmother, Mildred Brauer, lives in La Crosse.

This isn’t the first time Boor has worked in Great Bend.  After graduating with a bachelors degree in agriculture from Fort Hays State University, she went to work as a zookeeper at the Brit Spaugh Zoo.  Later, she was offered an opportunity at the Sedgewick County Zoo, where she worked with 12 species and 49 different breeds of domestic cattle, horses, hogs, sheep, goats and the less common species like camels, llamas and alpacas.  

“I have a passion for domestics over exotics,” she said.  “We ran the domestic operation as close to an actual farm as we were allowed to within zoo standards.”   The zoo works with the American Livestock Conservancy, and  has a

She also served as a zoology practicum coordinator for Friends University, and taught several courses in conjunction with the zoo’s education department.  The zoo works with the American Livestock Conservancy, it’s collection containing some of the most rare breeds of domestic livestock in the country.

But, her experience also includes first-hand farm knowledge she gained as a young person.  One of her first tasks will be to meet with the six-person Ag committee to determine what the programming needs of Barton County are.  With the Spring planting season gearing up, drought is expected to continue to be a big factor that needs to be addressed.  Already, requests for information about weeds is beginning to filter in, and later this spring, she will assist Krug in a Stop and Learn topic at the Great Bend Rec Center about container and small space gardening.  Boor is also looking towards fall, when she hopes to establish a wheat test plot in the county.  

Extension agents are jointly employed in a partnership between K-State Research and Extension, headquartered on the Kansas State University campus in Manhattan, and the local Extension board.

Agriculture and natural resources extension agents provide leadership in their communities by developing and delivering educational programming relative to agriculture-related information including crop and livestock production, environmental stewardship, farm and ranch management, agriculture public policy, and horticulture production.

Boor replaces former Barton County Ag agent Jenny Carr, who followed an opportunity to move to her hometown in Harper County at the end of July, 2012.