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City types get fleeting taste of farm life
The N.C. State University animal science students who staff the popular cow-milking booth at the State Fair have heard it all
Elders
making mark on governance
quotes James Svara, political science
City types get fleeting taste of farm life
Oct. 21, 2003
The News & Observer
By Vicki Hyman, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The News & Observer Publishing Company.
The N.C. State University animal science students who staff the popular cow-milking booth at the State Fair have heard it all:
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Why isn't the milk cold?"
"Because it's brown, does it give chocolate milk?"
And those are the adults, who plunk down $1 for a minute or two with a docile Jersey cow and an attempt to commune with their inner farmer.
"I grew up in the city and never got the chance to be around farm animals," said Cindy Kandel of Cary, who grew up in West Palm Beach, Fla. "Not the kind you milk, at least."
Adam McGarity, a senior from Charlotte, sat on a cushioned milk crate beside Pumpkin -- the cow is usually referred to as 2480; the more descriptive name is for the public's benefit -- and gave a quick demonstration.
Just like a ketchup packet, McGarity said: Pinch it at the top, go straight down, squeeze it out the hole.
Pumpkin complies, and milk squirts out of the teat. Kandel dips her finger into the stream. Warm and very rich, she pronounced.
Most of the fresh milk is tossed out, although Maple View Farm, a family-owned dairy in Orange County, provides half-pints of regular and chocolate milk as a stand-in reward.
Like everything else at the fair, the milking booth is not without its risks. A sign near the entrance warns potential milkers to wash their hands before and after, as hand-to-mouth contact after touching an animal is a health risk.
They also must mind the swishing tail, the cow's occasional shift in stance, and, well, calls of nature.
"Kids, they're like 'AHHHH,' said Summer Stroud, a senior from Edenton. "But that's part of it."
NCSU's Animal Science Club started the milking booth 15 years ago to raise money for scholarships and to help pay to go to the national convention. It nets about $5,000 a year, if the fair lucks into good weather.
When the booth opened in the Jim Graham Building at 12:30 p.m. Monday, the line to milk Pumpkin was already 50 strong. On weekends, the club fills two stalls so four people can milk at one time, but even then, there's often a 30-minute wait for the pleasure.
Of course, the students rotate cows through the course of the 10-day fair.
One single cow, said faculty adviser and assistant professor Jeannette Moore, "would get a little irritable, I would think."
Pumpkin munched contentedly throughout the early afternoon, unperturbed by the quantity or quality of her handlers.
Most adults and children quickly got the hang of milking, except one little girl who left empty-handed.
"She had sticky fingers," McGarity said. "She had candy on it or something. It wouldn't work."
The milking booth is a family tradition for the Rodenisers of Fuquay-Varina.
"They love it," said mother Jennifer, who watched her son, Davis, 5, go at it. "It's one of those things they have to do when they come to the fair."
Davis said the experience ranks right up there with "riding the speedy thing."
Staff writer Vicki Hyman can be reached at 829-4728.
In curbing kudzu, goats may be man's best friend
Oct. 21, 2003
The Christian Science Monitor
By Patrik Jonsson, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Christian Science Monitor.
RALEIGH, N.C. – What do
you do with a tenacious foreign invader that grows a foot a day and threatens
to suffocate the entire South?
For goats at least, the answer is plain: chew on it.
Until cool weather presaged the fall livestock auctions last week, a herd of 20 goateed "girls" - including Nibbler, Suki, and Layla - chewed to their hearts' content through a forest of kudzu on the campus of North Carolina State University, pulling down the unruly Japanese vines and devouring leaves, stems, and roots as though they were a Thursday night special at the local diner.
Having taken root in an area the size of New Hampshire and coveting another 120,000 acres each year, kudzu - innocently imported from Japan 127 years ago - is now an official enemy of state.
As a result, the iron-jawed goat has found its niche in a South that's looking for a hero to fight the creeping, tenacious, broad-leafed invader.
"Goats have gotten a bad rap over centuries," says Jean-Marie Luginbuhl, a North Carolina State agronomist who sponsored this summer's "Goat Invasion 2003" on campus. "But if you understand the way goats browse, you can really use them in a very positive way."
Employing goats to clear woodlands is not the newest trick in the book. But thanks to emerging research on their browsing habits - as well as vastly improved portable fences to hold them in - goats are slowly gaining acceptance as environmentally friendly "bio-agents" that fight noxious vines at their root.
And they're palatable beyond their pruning prowess: Researchers are hoping that the use of goats for kudzu control may coincide with the South's growing market for goat meat - a result of the immigration of Hispanics, Indians, and other goat-eating people into the area.
Raising goats "is just coming into the clear because of a shift in the population dynamics - and goat consumption is part of that changing demographic," says Errol Rhoden, who studies goats at Alabama's Tuskegee University.
Noxious, nutritious, tenacious
Introduced as a porch shade for Southern gents and ladies, kudzu has spread like the weed it is, reaching as far north as New York and as far west as Illinois.
After being brought from Japan to the 1876 Centennial Expo in Philadelphia, kudzu quickly took over - helped in the 1930s by the government paying farmers as much as $8 an acre to plant it to combat soil erosion. But soon the servant became the master. In 1997, the federal government reversed its stance on kudzu, calling it a "noxious weed" to be fought at every turn. Now, draped like verdant shawls across power poles and pine trees, American kudzu is a weed of forests and fence rows, roadsides and rights of way.
"If you look at the nutrient value [of kudzu], it's excellent," says Mr. Rhoden. "The problem is it does not normally stay where we want it to grow."
The spread of a herd mentality
Despite the warnings, most kudzu is left alone - only to expand steathily. Today, it's usually only roadways that are cleared, with expensive - and often ineffective - herbicides. Says Mr. Luginbuhl: "If kudzu is just invading property, not much is done about it."
But that thinking is slowly changing, especially as farmers and landowners increasingly see goats as a reasonable way to solve the kudzu problem - and as the government insists that they do so.
In several western Alabama counties, farmers are using herds of goats to clear kudzu-covered pastures. In the North Carolina mountains, landowners use goats to clear another annoying Japanese invader: multiflora roses. In Wilmington, N.C., the city's public-works department uses goats to clear overgrown railroad tracks.
Although it has just a few plots of kudzu , Missouri just made it a law that landowners must eradicate kudzu or face up to a year in jail. One Missouri man has put 35 goats to work on his vines to comply.
And what of the temptation to sell kudzu-fattened goats at auction? "I don't see people doing this as much to make money, but it's so inexpensive to start a herd, that it's starting to catch on," says Bill Knox, manager of the Small Ruminant Educational Unit at N.C. State.
Here on campus, the herd moved between three browsing plots, easily taking not only ground cover, but chewing through vines that were well over 40 feet tall. Nibbler, Suki, and Layla were sold last week to a couple of Raleigh landowners who needed their kudzu-munching services. But next year, they'll be back.
"They're gregarious," says Mr. Knox. "And they really are tremendous browsers."
Elders making mark on governance
Oct. 21, 2003
The Denver Post
By Sheba R. Wheeler, staff writer
© Copyright 2003 The Denver Post.
Wanda Sang has worked as
city clerk of Wheat Ridge for 20 years, all the while feeling she should be
a council member making decisions.
"I was aware of the issues; I knew how to prepare and balance a budget,"
Sang said. "I wanted to be out there pushing that voting button myself."
At 68, Sang said now is the right time to run for a City Council seat since a healthy life has left her with energy to spare.
There are many more like her.
Suburban candidates running for office this fall mirror a national trend in which older candidates are vying for council and mayoral seats across the United States.
The generation that helped spawn Vietnam War protests and civil rights marches may have aged, but its members have found a new way to change society: becoming leaders in local government.
"You can see this population's impact on American society moving its way through their life cycle," said James Svara, a North Carolina State University political science and public administration professor who completed a study on the changing demographics of local councils.
The survey, released by the National League of Cities in August, showed 34 percent of council members in 2001 were age 60 or older, compared with 14 percent in 1979.
The survey was sent to 2,000 elected officials from cities with populations of 25,000 or more in March 2001. Response was 670, or 32.7 percent.
The report also found that the majority of council members, 57 percent, continue to be between the ages of 40 and 59, a rate that has remained virtually the same since 1979. At the same time, the number of people in those offices younger than 40 dropped from 26 percent in 1979 to 9 percent in 2001.
In Golden, for instance, five out of six people running for office are 60 or older. In Littleton, three of eight candidates are in that age category. In Lakewood, four of 11 are 60 or older, while in Greenwood Village, two of six are at least 60 years old.
Of 20 candidates in Aurora, the largest suburban election, six are 60 or older.
Svara said the cause of the phenomenon is a combination of an increasing number of active, older Americans coupled with young individuals' growing disinterest in politics.
Society gradually is beginning to accept that people are living longer, are healthier and are capable of doing more things, said Marshall Kaplan, executive director of the Wirth Chair and the Institute for Public Policy at the University of Colorado at Denver.
The trend has been noticeable in the past decade, said Rick Ridder, a political consultant of the Denver firm Ridder/Braden Inc. During the time, political parties began actively recruiting candidates for lower-visibility races such as city council.
"They were having problems getting people to run," Ridder said. "Consequently, they turned to older people who were perceived as being more loyal."
Svara said research indicates college students in their early 20s prefer community service and the one-on-one contact of volunteerism instead of running for office.
"Once people reach their 60s, they begin to realize that the only place where they can really make a difference is in their local government," candidate Sang said.
In some ways, political experts say, the classic tale of the haves and have-nots determines who sits on city councils.
Older people often are retired or live off other income and have more time to devote to time-consuming committee and council meetings.
Harry Blankenship, 67, who is running a third time for the Northglenn council, said people his age have already walked the road in search of material things.
"As long as my health is good, I've got experience and knowledge to give back to the community," Blankenship said. "I want to leave a legacy and make it better."
In contrast, younger individuals don't have the time to participate in civic endeavors because the economic downturn has forced many to work two or three jobs to support their families. And younger people generally cannot afford costly campaigns.
If elected to an at-large seat on the Aurora City Council in November, Ryan Frazier, a 26-year-old engineer with Raytheon, could be one of the youngest representatives elected in Colorado.
Frazier said his passion for public policy was instilled by his naval service, but his financial stability is what enables him to run.
"It is a factor because you can't go running for office unless you have (money)," Frazier said.
Older citizens also have the average voter on their side simply because there are more people in their age group who actually vote. Floyd Ciruli, a pollster in Colorado, said the average voter in a Colorado city election is 55, increasing the likelihood that a contemporary will be voted in.
John J. Heckman Jr., 95, has run for public office many times - including council, city clerk, U.S. Senate and U.S. House seats, and, currently, Lakewood mayor - because he said he wants to spend his final life efforts returning the United States to a foundation based in Christianity.
Heckman said he's never been elected "and probably never will be."
"I run because it gives me a forum so I can speak to people," he said. "Politicians nowadays do not say what people should hear; they say to people what will get a vote. I say what the country needs to hear because the country is in trouble."
Enduring the Depression and growing up after World War II may have instilled older residents with a greater sense of civic pride.
"Younger people aren't coming up like we did, having been taught to value some of our basic freedoms," said Mark Hodges, 74, running for Ward 5 in Aurora. "They allow laws to be passed that tell you how to build your house, what color it should be and how much yard you can have. They don't know that the individual is autonomous and the government is a servant to the people."
Experts say an influx of older people in city government could mean more laws being passed to provide services for the elderly, such as recreation and cultural centers, but fewer allocations for public schools because government officials who don't have children in the system may be less likely to support them.
Few believe it will result in a reinstitution of old ideas, a decline in innovation or severe fiscal conservatism.
"It might have been that older people in my mother's day were stuck in their ways," Sang said. "But older people today are more prone to listen to different views and weigh them."