In this Thanksgiving Day Season, I am going to digress from my usual mostly 3rd person narrative and share some perspectives in a 1st person format. In short, I am thankful. You know, one of the best holidays we have is Thanksgiving. In most years, there’s plentiful time to enjoy with family and friends, good food to eat, and most importantly, the opportunity to be thankful.
I have lots of things to be thankful for – the aforementioned family and friends, the vibrant city and free country in which I live and worship, and my work. My work has been very gratifying over the past 35 plus years, in industry, University of Illinois Extension and Nebraska Extension. Considering this blog post, I must start with gratitude for this great group of Gro Big Red bloggers, podcasters, posters and tweeters that I work with. These are great people – Kathleen, Scott, Jonathan and John – and it’s been great to dovetail my talents with theirs. I’m thankful for what they have taught me about communication in this decade and for the results that we’ve collectively achieved.
If I had to point to one aspect other than the electronic communication success that I’m thankful for, it’s gotta be the over 200 Master Gardeners that volunteer their time for us in the furtherance of our programming goals, to extend researched based information and best management practices to residents of Nebraska. These dear souls teach consumers in many ways – demonstration gardens, Ask the MG Booths, speaking engagements, community gardens and the very traditional horticulture helpline.
The more I reflect, the more I have to be thankful for; a healthy endeavor indeed.
