One hundred years of tips on everything from raising livestock to running 4-H meetings, from efficient child care to developing community leaders, will be celebrated by the Iowa State Extension with a yearlong celebration.

The campus celebration will be Sept. 29 and 30, and the anniversary will be tied into the Nov. 8 dedication of the currently under construction 4-H building on campus, said Mark Settle, field specialist for cooperative extension.

A kick-off celebration was held April 7 in Hull, Iowa where the extension program began in 1903. The celebration focused on the local and county extension and its impact on the surrounding businesses and communities, but it did recognize Iowa State and its role in developing extension for various Iowa communities, said Stan Johnson, director of ISU Extension.

“There was a great outpouring of support for ISU and its land grant mission and the role [the Extension] play[s] in supporting the aspirations of the community,” Johnson said.

ISU Extension affiliates and local, state and national extension supporters made up the crowd of almost 300 people, Settle said. Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley appeared in a video to congratulate the Extension program and ISU President Gregory Geoffroy spoke about the ISU Extension as a model for the national extension, which began 11 years after Iowa State’s program, Johnson said.

“It was a great event and a good chance to remember ISU helped change the nation in a very important way by leading the establishment of the national extension office,” Geoffroy said in an e-mail.

Currently, there are more than 100 land grant schools, and all have extension programs, Johnson said.

“Land grant colleges and universities are really peoples’ institutions,” Johnson said. “They have as a core mission providing access to high quality education, development of science knowledge and putting the science knowledge into practice as a way of increasing the opportunities for the citizens in the states in which they are located.”

Since its beginning, the focus of ISU Extension has evolved.

Originally, cooperative extension’s purpose was to aid farmers and families. There were two extension employees at the county level. There was a county agent known as a ‘crop doctor’ whose job was to aid farmers, and many counties had a home demonstration agent who helped farm women in areas including nutrition and sanitation, said Dorothy Schweider, retired ISU professor of history and author of a book and a journal article on the history of cooperative extension.

“Cooperative extension provides a very useful service. I have a very high opinion of it,” Schweider said. “Through the years it has done a great deal to help Iowa families.”

Iowa State was seen as an ideal site to locate extension because it had the resources for the research, Schweider said.

“This is where they put it because this is where extension’s research is being done,” Schweider said. “Iowa State’s dedication to science research benefits the cooperative extension.”

Shortly after extension began, the 4-H program became part of cooperative extension, Johnson said. The 4-H program itself was new, beginning one year prior to extension.

“Extension and 4-H started to work together because they had a similar focus,” Johnson said.

The extension’s focus has now broadened to include helping Iowa communities, business and industry and continuing education, Johnson said. Extension specialization now goes beyond agriculture and families. There are specialists in textiles and clothing, poultry, nutrition and livestock, Schweider said.

“Through the years, there have been many changes,” Schweider said. “[Extension] has expanded and become more specialized.”

The individual counties and regional offices of extension will honor the anniversary independently and there will be a celebration at the Iowa State Fair, Johnson said.

Story County extension office is hoping to recognize extension’s 100-year anniversary with its sesquicentennial celebration in June, July and August, said Dave Andrews, director for Story County Extension.