Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Mindy Turner responds to a comment as she works at a makeshift office in the demonstration area of the Clovis Cooperative Extension office.
For two years, Mindy Turner has been the program director and the family and consumer sciences agent at New Mexico State University's Agricultural Cooperative Extension office in Clovis, but her career with the extension service goes back 20 years.
In fact, her first job after graduating from Texas Tech University with a bachelor's degree in Human Development and Family Studies was with an extension service in Texas.
She never left extension service work even as she earned a master's degree in psychology and counseling from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas.
Extension work harmonizes well with her background in human development and counseling, she has learned, especially since the role of mental health in rural life has increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Turner commutes to her downtown Clovis office from her family's spread located along the state line south of Texico.
The News caught up with Mindy on Wednesday. Our questions and her responses follow:
Q: What drew you to extension service work?
A: When I was at Texas Tech, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do and I interviewed with the extension service and got the job, but I grew up as a 4-Her in Eddy County, where I learned how to lead, learn and teach. That's what attracted me to the extension service.
Q: Where else have you served in the extension service?
A: I served in Texas for five years, and then I worked for the state of New Mexico in the extension service, working with 4-H programs. I also worked in Otero County before coming to Clovis.
Q: What is your favorite part of the job?
A: Working with people across the life span. I work with 3- and 4-year olds in preschools, and people in their 80s at the senior centers. It's something new and different every day.
Q: What are the biggest issues in rural family life today?
A: It's the disconnect in communication. We struggle to communicate with other communities and between generations. It's in how hard people have to work to get along. In a program in Grady schools, we have been working get people to open up with each other, and how important that is to mental health. COVID-19 and having to stay home brought in a lot of issues. People need to open up and talk about them. A kid should talk about their struggles with math. If you can't talk about issues, they tend to grow. We're starting early. At our Farm Safety programs, which include tours of various aspects of farm safety for third and fourth graders, we now have a station on stresses in farm life and mental health for the fourth graders.
Q: What do you do when you're not working?
A: I have my family and horses. My husband Jason is a horse specialist for the extension service. My sons raise horses as 4-H projects, and they are very active in 4-H. The horses they raise as projects are palominos, but we also have quarter-horses. My son Denny, 14, is getting into sports. His brother John, 12, is in middle school.
Q: What inspires your enthusiasm for 4-H?
A: It offers more than 200 programs for kids with all kinds of interests, from animal husbandry to cooking to rocketry. As they do these projects, they also learn responsibility and leadership skills that will last a lifetime.
