The Keynote Presenter

I have a number of “canned” presentations in my speaking portfolio. So when I am asked to speak on a topic that is not in that portfolio, I welcome the opportunity to research and learn more about that topic. That is what happened this week when I was asked to speak to the Counseling & Career Development Division of the North Carolina Association for Career and Technical Education. Their meeting in Raleigh coincided with the state fair.

So how is Career and Technical Education (CTE) like the state fair? After giving a brief history of the North Carolina State Fair I described how the two were similar. Some of the points I made included:

• They are both places of discovery
• Both expose people to new ideas and ideals
• They both include hands-on activities and learning
• They both focus on real-world experiences
• They both celebrate individual talents with blue ribbons and awards
• They connect people from all walks of life and develop community
• They can be springboards for growth and could lead to new careers
• Done properly, they both can be fun

The audience was surprised to learn there once were segregated state fairs in North Carolina and in other states. Thankfully, that is a thing of the past. 

During July I made two presentations on the same topic – Winning World War II on the Home Front. The first presentation was at the Chautauqua Institution in New York, the second was at the Fountain Park Chautauqua in Indiana. While Victory Gardens was the main focus of the presentation I also spoke about scrap metal and rubber drives during the war, collection of scrap paper by school age children known as Paper Troopers, and collecting tin cans by the Tin Canoneers school children. We also spent some time talking about rationing and how vocational agriculture students repaired farm equipment during the war because the farm equipment manufacturers were making equipment for the war effort. The audience were somewhat surprised to learn that we (primarily school age kids) collected milkweed pods for use in life preservers. Women were asked to give up their silk and nylon stockings for war use. Silk stocking were made into gun powder containers and the nylon was used in parachutes. This was an age of patriotism and Americans working together.

The NCTTFC Agricultural Leadership Development Program at North Carolina State University prepares younger agriculturalist to be our future leaders. This year the program revolves around the topic of Crucial Conversations. This can be a daunting topic. So I was invited to be the post-luncheon speaker last week to engaged in a crucial conversation about the history of outhouses. It was designed to be entertaining (and educational) with the moral being it is good to think about the past but we must be forward thinking and be looking to the future. The image below is the group I spoke to but we were inside, not out in a field.

I love traveling in Utah — but in the summer time. I was in Salt Lake City on February 9 to speak at the annual meeting of the National Association of Conservation Districts. There was snow on the ground and it was chilly outside. However, it was warm inside. Since I was a USDA Soil Conservation Service intern during my college days, I enjoyed speaking to my ” home folks”. I spoke about the history and evolution of the outhouse. I even encountered a student from a class I taught 20+ years ago.

During World War II Italian and German Prisoners of War were “leased” out to farmers, food processors and the lumber industry to work. Since many American men were fighting overseas, there was a labor shortage in America. The use of POWs was one approach to solving the labor shortage. This was the gist of my presentation to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Raleigh earlier this week. In North Carolina we had 18 POW camps and there was some conflict between farmers and the pulpwood industry about the use of the POWs. The demand for labor was greater than the supply. The audience was a little surprise to learn that 118 POWs were employed at Duke and the University of North Carolina as “mess attendants.”

The audience was enthusiatic and laughed a lot. But more importantly they learned that using humor in the classrohom enhances learning and breaks down barriers in the classroom. That was the objective when I spoke about “Turning “HaHa” into “Aha” – Using Humor in the Classroom” to a group of teachers at the annual meeting of the Association for Career and Technical Eduation in San Antonio in early December. Most people don’t realize there are professional societies and scholarly journals that focus on the use of humor in education. Now a group of CTE teachers know and are cognizant of the research.

When I speak about the old time camp meetings and circuit rider preachers, the reactions I get are interesting. Last week I spoke at the Hayes Barton Baptist Church in Raleigh. One audience member said he had never heard of camp meetings. Another wanted to know if they still existed (yes, they do. There are at least 10 active in North Carolina and more in South Carolina). One person said she and her trio had sung at the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting in New Jersey. One lady said her great grandfather was a circuit rider preacher and would preach hell fire on his circuit and then come home and give his family hell. Sometimes I think I learn more than the audience does.

It was nice to finally speak to a local group after being on the road part of the summer. I spoke to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at North Carolina State University on Monday. The NCSU Continuing Education program is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The OLLI programming occurs in the Jane McKimmon Conference and Training Center. The Center was named after the leader of the Girls’ Tomato Club movement in North Carolina. So I was asked to speak about “How Boys’ Corn Clubs and Girls’ Tomatoe Clubs Changed Rural America. This was to recognize Jane McKimmon and pay homage to 100 years of continuing education at NCSU.

The Chautauqua Institution in New York state celebrated its 150th anniversary this summer. It started in 1874 as a two-week long assembly to improve the teaching of Sunday School. Attendees camped out in tents. It was so popular that it was repeated and evolved into a nine week long summer assembly focused on the fine arts, religion, current events, world affairs, the environment and the list goes on and on. The tents were replaced by elaborate cottages on the 750 acre site. On a typical summer day, there are 7,500 people on the campus to immerse themselves in a variety of classes, lectures and other activities.

It was a distinct honor to be asked to wrap up the summer long celebration of Chautauqua during the last week of the season. My presentation was titled “Go Ye Into All the World: Stories of the Chautauqua Movement and its Legacy.” I reviewed the basic tenents of the Chautauqua movement and then identified 26 impacts that it had on the world ranging from adult education theory and practice, starting the PTA, promoting suffrage, starting summer schools, promoting Boy Scouts and Campfire girls, starting correspondence courses, starting university presses, refining the Dewey Decimal system, promoting the establishment of local libraries, establishing playgrounds for children, educating secular school teachers, promoting temperance, and establishing women’s clubs. And this was just a start.

Most people don’t equate Chautauqua with the world of agriculture but there was a strong connection between the two. Penn State took the concept of the Chautauqua reading program and created agricultural reading circles. There were even Farmer Chautauquas in numerous states. The traveling Chautauquas found in the Midwest in the early 1900s even had farm camps for boys where they taught agricultural practices. There was even a Farmers Radio Chautauqua program. I am looking forward to the next 150 years of Chautauqua.

My goal when I spoke to the Fountain Park Chautauqua in Indiana on July 22 was to get the audience to say “I didn’t know that.” The title of the presentation was “Corn, Tomatoes, and Prisoners of War: Hoosier Agriculture During World War II.” During WWII 10% of the population in Indiana had joined the military or worked in war industries. This created a huge labor shortage in farming and food processing (Indiana was the leading tomato producing state in the country at this point in time). So what was the solution?

One solution was to use prisoner of war labor in agricultural operations in Indiana. There were nine prisoner of war camps in the state and the POW’s were farmed out (pun intended) to work on farms and in processing plants. The farmers paid the government fifty cents an hour for POW labor. ThePOWs detassled corn, picked tomatos, harvested potatoes, hoed corn, shocked wheat, filled silos and performed many other agricultural jobs. If it were not for the POW labor, many farms would have gone under.

Most of the prisoners of war were Geman boys 18-20 years old. Often strong bonds developed between the farmers and the POWs. Several years after the war was over, about 5,000 former German POWs returned to the United States.

The Italian POWs at Camp Atterbury south of Indianapolis built a chapel out of surplus building materials. It still stands today and is the only vestige that remains of the POW camp (see images below).