- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ricardo Vela, manager of UC ANR News and Information Outreach in Spanish (NOS), won the ACE 2024 Rising Star Award, an annual award that "honors communicators, instructors and researchers who demonstrate exceptional leadership and technical skills in their communication field, to their institution, and service to ACE."
Five other UC ANR communicators won either a gold (first place), silver (second place), or a bronze (third place) award.
- A trio from UC ANR Strategic Communications--Michael Hsu, senior public information representative; Ethan Ireland, senior videographer; and Evett Kilmartin, photographer--teamed to win a silver award for their video, “Farm-to-Corrections Project."
- Strategic Communications' social media strategist Doralicia Garay won a bronze award for her entry, “Improving Lives in California” in the category, social media organic campaign.
- Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist for the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and author of the Bug Squad blog on the UC ANR site, won a gold award for “best feature photo."
They will receive their awards at the ACE conference, scheduled June 23-25 in Salt Lake City Utah. The theme: “Big Ideas Start Here.”
Ricardo Vela
Ricardo Vela is a 35-year, two-time Emmy-winning broadcast journalism professional, as noted on the ACE site. As program manager of NOS, he supervises a Spanish-language expert team that disseminates news and research about agriculture, nutrition, and natural resources to Spanish-speaking communities across California. Vela is “an advocate for Latino and other ethnic groups, promoting their contributions to society and creating for the first time, events for the UC ANR community to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and Cesar Chavez Day.”
Before joining UC ANR, Vela worked as a national news correspondent for Univision and CNN in Texas and Los Angeles. He started his journalism career at the Chicago Tribune and Univision in Chicago, Ill. While in Chicago, he collaborated with several Latino community organizations, always promoting equity and inclusion. He served as Univision's main news anchor in San Diego for 17 years and hosted a morning talk radio show,“Voces Hispanas,” for 10 years. His career includes serving as news director and anchor at Entravisión (a Univisión affiliate) in Palm Springs and as a news anchor at Telemundo in El Paso, Texas. In 2006, Hispanic Magazine listed him as among the 100 most influential Latinos in the country.
UC ANR Vice President Glenda Humiston appointed Vela as a founding member of the UC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee to serve a three-year term.
The ACE Rising Star Award memorializes Frank Jeter (1891-1955), a pioneering ACE member from North Carolina who made significant contributions to the communication field and to ACE.
Michael Hsu, Ethan Ireland and Evett Kilmartin
The Hsu-Ireland-Kilmartin team produced a video featuring UC ANR's Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) and its unique partnership with Impact Justice, ChangeLab Solutions, Spork, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDRC). Last July they launched the "Farm-to-Corrections Harvest of the Month" project, which brings fresh, specialty produce into California prisons “to improve the diets of the residents, as well as improve their overall health and well-being.” Impact Justice is a prison reform organization, ChangeLab Solutions is a health equity nonprofit, and Spork is a regional food hub.
The video, Hsu said, aims to raise awareness and build support for the project. He cited its many wins:
- Opens major untapped market for California growers and producers (especially small farmers)
- Demonstrates a way for CDCR to meet requirements for in-state sourcing of food
- Provides healthier food for residents of the correctional facilities, while introducing new produce and nutrition education opportunities that can help them live better lives while they are in prison and after they return to their communities.
Hsu conducted the interviews and wrote the script; Ireland shot and edited the video; and Kilmartin contributed photos. Some images were taken in the California Department of Corrections, California State Prison, Solano (Vacaville). (See the news story, "Farm-to-Corrections' Project Provides Fresh Produce to People in Prison, Boosts California Growers.")
Doralicia Garay
"The campaign's strategic emphasis on showcasing employees within the narrative of research efforts enhances the UC ANR brand identity and positions the organization as a collaborative pioneer in innovation," Garay wrote. "This comprehensive approach leverages the power of social media to extend reach, foster engagement, and effectively cater to our online community."
Among those featured in "Improving Lives in California:" entomologist Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor of Cooperative Extension, and a member of the faculty of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Kathy Keatley Garvey
Kathy Keatley Garvey, a journalist formerly with UC ANR before joining the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, submitted an image of a honey bee buzzing over a zinnia. Her entry, “Celebrating the Honey Bee," won the feature photo category, for "one image that effectively tells a story."
"The purpose of this photo was to celebrate the honey bee by capturing an image of a pollen-packing worker bee in flight over a bright flower," wrote Garvey. Her gear: a Nikon D500 with a 105mm lens. Settings: 1/4000 of a second (to freeze the action), ISO 1000, and f-stop 6.3. She sought to showcase "the amazing color: the bright red zinnia and the orange pollen;" the bee's speed (deliberately blurring the wings); and "to emphasize that foraging honey bees are incredible workers."
"That is one huge ball of pollen that she'll take back to her colony," Garvey wrote. Feedspot, which ranks blogs by traffic, social media followers and freshness, ranks her Bug Squad blog as the No. 4 bug blog in the world, Garvey has written the blog every night, Monday through Friday, since Aug. 6, 2008.
Communication Professionals
ACE, headquartered in Morton Grove, Ill., describes it members as "communication faculty and professionals at public and land-grant universities throughout the United States and in similar institutions in other nations.We are communication professionals at local, state and federal agencies; corporations and nonprofit organizations; and agriculture- and natural resources-focused international research centers."
Its members include "writers, editors, graphic designers, webmasters, video producers, information technologists, photographers, administrators, researchers, faculty members and others in the communications field. We plan, prepare and disseminate research results and Extension educational materials. We distribute research-based information to scientists and technicians, and practical, problem-solving information to people who put it to work: farmers, families, foresters, food processors, ranchers, homemakers, news media, youth, marine businesses, businesses and many others."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Barbara Allen-Diaz, vice president of the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) vowed last year to wear bees if she received at least $2500 in donations for UC student scholarships through the "Promise for Education" fundraising drive.
She did and she will. Wear honey bees that is. This week. Bee-lieve it.
Allen-Diaz chose her project to highlight the importance of pollinators to the health of agriculture and the planet.
Professional bee wrangler Norm Gary, emeritus professor of entomology and retired bee research scientist at UC Davis, will train bees to buzz into her open hands to sip nectar.
The event, dubbed "Operation Pollination," also will be his last professional bee stunt. "This is absolutely my last performance as a professional bee wrangler," said Gary, considered the world's best bee wrangler. "The remainder of my retirement years will be devoted to music, not bees."
Photos and/or video from the event are scheduled be posted on social media sometime Thursday, May 1.
So last week, the "B" Team did a buzz run. The "B" Team, led by Gary, included Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen, yours truly and three members of UC ANR:
- Pam Kan-Rice, assistant director, News and Information Outreach Communication Services and Information Technology
- Ray Lucas, senior producer/director, Digital Media, and
- Evett Kilmartin, digital media librarian.
Was Kan-Rice a little apprehensive? Not at all. A former ag reporter based in Fresno, she felt quite comfortable around them, as Gary assured her she would. "They felt fuzzy, wuzzy and warm," she said, adding matter-of-factly: "I've never been stung by a bee."
The artificial nectar? "I make it with ordinary table sugar … about half sugar and half water," Gary said. "Then I add one tiny drop for flavoring, such as anise, that provides a fragrance that attracts bees. Almost any flavor will work fine … peppermint, lavender, etc. My artificial nectar is as good, maybe better, than natural nectar. At least the bees respond 100 percent! People don't realize that table sugar (sucrose) is perhaps the purest natural product on the market. It is identical to the sucrose found in natural nectar."
Gary retired in 1994 from UC Davis after a 32-year academic career. He is the author of numerous peer-reviewed research publications and most recently wrote a book, The Honey Bee Hobbyist: the Care and Keeping of Bees.
During his professional bee wrangler career spanning four decades, Gary trained bees to perform action scenes in movies, television shows and commercials. His credits include 18 films, including “Fried Green Tomatoes”; more than 70 television shows, including the Johnny Carson and Jay Leno shows; six commercials, and hundreds of live Thriller Bee Shows in the Western states.
He once trained bees to fly into his mouth to collect food from a small sponge saturated with his patented artificial nectar. He holds the Guinness World record (109 bees inside his closed mouth for 10 seconds) for the stunt. He is well known for wearing a head-to-toe suit of bees while "Buzzing with his B-Flat Clarinet."
So, come Thursday, the social insects in the hands of Barbara Allen-Diaz will be on the social media.
"Foraging bees do not react defensively to color whatsoever," Gary said. "Beekeepers wear white because bees can be defensive during hive manipulations and tend to react to darker colors...bees away from the hive during foraging and pollination normally do not sting unless physically molested, such as picking them up. Most stings are from yellow jackets and wasps but lay people think they have been stung by a bee."
Said Mussen: '"The few 'trained' bees that Norm will be using won't even be around a hive. Their likelihood of stinging anything or anyone is as close to zero as it can get, as long as we 'beehave.' No jerky movements. No swatting at bees around the face; no blowing the bees away from your face."
After Gary's last bee wrangling stunt, he will be totally focused on his music. He's in a duo, Mellow Fellas, and plays clarinet, alto sax, tenor sax, and flute.
"For the last two years I have also been performing in a Dixieland band, Dr. Bach and the Jazz Practitioners. We are playing lots of gigs in every imaginable venue. Our most notable performances are at the Sacramento Music Festival, a four-day event held each Memorial Day weekend. We also perform at pizza parlors, senior retirement organizations, etc. We play swing-music style, too. "
Gary also performs with a quartet, Four For Fun, that has eclectic tastes, but most tunes, he says, have a Dixieland flavor. "We'll perform for the Monterey Jazz Society on May 18. Our bass sax and trumpet players are extremely talented ladies who live in Eugene, Ore. Our banjo/guitarist/vocalist lives in Sonoma. I still play duo gigs with several piano/keyboard professionals. And I play clarinet occasionally with the Sacramento Banjo Band."
That would be the "B" flat clarinet.
