- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control issued an advisory about beef products from JBS Swift Beef Company that may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that a sample of prepackaged Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough yielded E. coli O157:H7.
O157:H7 is a dangerous strain of E. coli. When ingested by humans, it can cause bloody diarrhea, and in some people, especially children, a potentially deadly disease called hemolytic uremic syndrome,
But there is some good news....
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Nearly 200 people gathered at the UC Kearney Research and Extension Center yesterday to send off retiring director Fred Swanson. The event was covered by ABC 30 Action News, the No. 1 broadcast news outlet in Fresno.
Reporter Dale Yurong interviewed Swanson in front of the center's two-story office, laboratory and meeting room complex, one of many expansions at the center that Swanson oversaw during his 26-year tenure at the helm.
"The idea was to put Kearney on the map and really develop this research center into a world-class facility," Swanson said on camera.
Somehow, Yurong was able to...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The Riverside Press-Enterprise may have the last word on blueberries for the 2009 season. Reporter Sean Nealon wrote two stories for last Saturday's paper about the Inland Empire's fledging blueberry industry.
One story reported on a Temecula blueberry farm where most of the fruit is harvested by the consumers themselves. The other story suggested that blueberries can make nice landscape plants. Both stories proffer the antioxidant-rich fruit with less strain on the pocketbook.
In the U-pick article, the reporter...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
In the last month or so, I interviewed four retiring UC academics about their education, their beginnings with UC, their accomplishments (there were many) and their retirement plans. In all, the quartet represent 126 years of service to the California agricultural industry. All of them retire today. You can read all about the retirees by going to the news releases, linked to their names. Here, I'll share the fun part: their retirement plans.
Fred Swanson, director, UC Kearney Research and Extension Center
Swanson and his wife Cheryl will stay in their new Kingsburg home...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UCCE's media services manager Mike Poe recently shared a video success story with the Communications Services team. Sacramento UCCE was struggling to maintain county funding. At budget hearings, the 4-H advisor in Sacramento County, Marianne Bird, handed out copies of a five-minute video that Poe had helped put together about the 4-H Water Wizards project.
Bird e-mailed Mike last week: "Our acting county director just came in to tell me that the Department of Water Resources has committed $20,000 to Sacramento UCCE as a result of seeing the Water Wizards DVD."
This experience definitely shows how a visual communications piece can pay dividends. Here is the video:
