Ogallala Commons Newsletter: July (Week 3)

A Final Chance to Gather The summer break is coming to an end, but there is still one more event that can bring Community Interns together: a concert by Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Terri Hendrix, accompanied by legendary Texas Music producer, multi-instrumentalist Lloyd Maines, in concert at the Home Mercantile in Nazareth, TX on Sunday afternoon, August 14th from 3-5pm. Any OC Community Intern can attend this concert for half-price ($10).

Terri Hendrix exemplifies much of what Community Interns strive for: helping their hometowns, being an entrepreneur, and building a creative career path. Between filling Internet orders alongside her team at Wilory Records from her e-commerce store, working toward the launch of her OYOU (“Own Your Own Universe”) community arts center and keeping up with her three beloved, rambunctious mutts and an organic garden with a mind of its own, Terri Hendrix has certainly had her hands full of late on the San Marcos, Texas, home front. But it would take a lot more than all of the above to keep her from pursuing her insatiable passion for writing and performing music. For more information, please visit Terri’s website: www.terrihendrix.com

By the time she got around to recording her debut album, 1996’s Two Dollar Shoes, Hendrix did what most artists still did at the time, and shopped around for a record label. She was turned down by three, none of which are still in business. She released the record independently, and never looked back. Now, twelve self-released albums later, Hendrix is still thriving — and grateful she made the fateful decision more than a dozen years ago to not only follow her own path through her music career, but to ultimately “own her own universe.” A classically trained vocalist and deft multi-instrumentalist (guitar, mandolin and harmonica), Hendrix is a firm believer in the theory that “life’s too short for one genre,” dodging musical pigeonholes by weaving folk, pop, country, blues and swinging jazz into an eclectic style all her own that plays like a lovingly compiled mix-CD. Add to that her charismatic stage presence and reputation for always delivering an energetic and spiritually uplifting live show (from intimate listening rooms to huge outdoor festivals), and it’s no wonder why she’s been embraced by three generations of loyal fans around the world. As the San Antonio Express-News observed, “Part of the beauty of Terri Hendrix’s music is she’s among the best at recognizing, writing about and celebrating resilience and common ground, the things we can all cry, and laugh, about.” To get the specially-priced intern tickets for the August 14th concert with Hendrix and Maines, please contact OC Director Darryl Birkenfeld by email or phone.

Intern Profile: Aleece Methvin
Hello folks.

My name is Aleece Methvin and I am a Spring 2011 graduate of Texas Tech University earning a degree in General Studies; the focuses being Geography, Psychology, and Photography. I am currently in the process of applying for a Fulbright scholarship to Ethiopia where my proposed research topic will be to work with the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital and document personal experiences involving obstetric fistulas through photography and interviews (that of the patients, their family, doctors, nurses, volunteers, and so on).

A little history: I was born and raised in Levelland, Texas (home of South Plains College, alleged UFO sightings in the 1950s, tumble weeds, cotton, etc.) I currently live thirty miles east of my homeland in Lubbock, Texas where I am participating in a summer internship with Ogallala Commons. Up until now, my duties this summer have consisted of organizing the Ogallala Commons archive within the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University so that the community may have access to first-hand information concerning one of the most important subjects of our time-water; at a time when recognizing the fact of its depletion has become unavoidable. Starting this week, however, I will begin helping Andy Wilkinson (the Artist in Residence at the SWC/SCs Library and visiting assistant professor in the School of Music and in the Honors College) with a photo project documenting before and after panoramic images of the landscapes where transmission line segments will be placed around the Texas Panhandle and South Plains regions. (Take a look at http://www.caprockenergy.com/ for more information).

I had the honor of having my final project in Advanced Documentary Photography (a photography book) accepted into the Millennial Collection within the SWC/SCs Library during the Fall 2010 semester, so it has definitely been an honor to work within this constantly evolving archive of West Texas.

Intern Profile: Heather Mitchell
Hello, my name is Heather Mitchell and I live in Roy, New Mexico. I will be a senior this fall at Roy High School. I am active in volleyball, basketball, 4-H, FEA and FFA. I am very passionate about FFA. With every single one of these activities I have done, I have learned a lot, from teamwork to leadership. I always try to do anything that is needed in our small community. I have lived here my entire life and I really care about this town.

This summer of 2011, I have been working for the Harding County Economic Development Board. We have been working on asset mapping this summer. We have been looking at old buildings around our community to see what houses need to be torn down and which ones are good enough for us to rebuild so that we have more house for more families to move in our little town. We have also been asking people questions to see what they know how do like health care or computer skills. So if there is someone that is really good at health care and someone needs help with that then they know who to go to for help. We are also asking them questions trying to see what they think our communities need so we can get more people in our towns. By doing this internship I have started to learn more about myself, like my work ethics, I have also learned what conditions I work best in.

Intern Profile: Jennifer Zavaleta By way of quick introduction, my name is Jennifer Zavaleta and I am a graduate student in the Natural Resource Department at Texas Tech. I was asked to write about the importance of program evaluation and how program evaluation fits in with my future plans after graduation.

My first semester with Ogallala Commons has been a learning and meaningful experience. At the beginning of this internship I was a little unsure of my skills in terms of developing surveys and analyzing their results. However, I have been learning through an independent study with Dr. Todd Brashears in the Agricultural Education Department and now feel much more confidant. In return for helping me with program evaluation for Ogallala Commons, I have worked with him on analyzing surveys, which compare the knowledge and attitudes of meat possessing managers at private and state-operated plants. While the subject matter greatly differs from that which I measured with Ogallala Commons, one fact remains: Program evaluations are essential for program development. Program evaluation is important because it highlights unobvious assumptions, indicates where lessons may need to be bolstered, and provides hard numbers and evidence that an organization is making a difference.

While interning with Ogallala Commons I developed four different surveys for four demographics Ogallala Commons works closely with. This includes landowners who attend management days, teachers who attend playa festival training day, students currently partaking in playa festivals, and former playa festival attendees. Each survey measured knowledge, attitudes and behaviors before and after Ogallala Common’s programming. I have only had the opportunity to analyze the data from the prescribed grazing management day.

The results were, at times, surprising and seemingly contradictory. For example, landowners claimed that management decisions were not primarily driven by economic concerns. However, they were not willing to implement prescribed grazing for financial reasons. After learning this information, I suggested that staff at Ogallala Commons add specific information on the economic advantages of prescribed grazing to better encourage behavioral change. The information I collected helped staff at Ogallala Commons adjust curriculum to better meet the needs of its intended audience, better allocate limited funding, and present hard-data to their board of directors.

The theme of unexpected results is not limited to my experience with Ogallala Commons. Dr. Brashears and I have collected and analyzed data related to organizational climate and culture of meat packing plants in central Mexico. We found that while knowledge-based education is important to improved food safety, it is not sufficient for successful implementation of safety directives. We determined that management’s attitude toward the food safety and work-culture of the plant influenced quality of processed meat. This information changed food safety curriculum. Instead of solely focusing on food safety procedures, now education also includes the importance of food safety and appeals to changing people’s attitude toward safety issues. This small yet meaningful change in curriculum is a significant step toward improving meat quality such that it may be possible to trade with the United States, a goal of Mexican meat production.

Not only are program evaluations valuable because they can show surprising results, they also provide hard numbers as opposed to impressions that people have understood the educational materials and will change their behavior. In our survey to landowners we were able to prove people gained knowledge from management days by asking content-based questions. We were also able to measure that people planned on changing their behavior based on their interactions with Ogallala Commons. The survey asked participants what their behaviors were before the management day and what they hoped to do after. There was a significant intent to change in terms of implementing prescribed grazing, identifying plants on their playa, and providing an adequate buffer zone around their playa. This information demonstrates that Ogallala Commons is having a significant impact in the community. This is powerful information when writing grants and impressive to share with a board of directors. I look forward to analyzing more surveys related to playa festivals once the school year starts.

The program evaluation that I have participated in while working with Ogallala Commons and Dr. Brashears has motivated me to apply for a Fulbright to work in Chile. Chile’s Long Term Socio Economic Research Program has started to link scientists from different universities, field stations, and private industries as well as community members and politicians. This network has the potential to drastically improve collaboration efforts throughout Chile. I would love to be granted the opportunity to work with the LTSER network and help them measure how effective their current efforts are on spreading awareness of the organization and make suggestions for how to improve recognition and collaboration of the network. I will have the opportunity to meet the directors of this program when I attend the Ecological Society of America meeting in Austin this August. I look forward to learning more about the LTSER program and how I can contribute to its success.