Cover Story
Meet Carla Due, long-time Miller County Extension Agent.
CARLA DUE, A MILLER COUNTY EXTENSION AGENT for more than 30 years, has taught people how to improve their lives in many ways; it’s a labor of love on her part. “I love that human interaction. I love that lightbulb moment people have. I can be teaching a class on creating a budget and you see the lightbulb go off in someone’s head and they’re thinking, ‘Yeah OK, now I understand.’”
This month she’s embarking on a new journey as University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service’s Ouachita District director, overseeing extension offices in 25 of the state’s 75 counties, including Miller County and the Southwest Arkansas region.
The Ouachita District extends from Scott County south all the way down the Oklahoma border, across to Louisiana to Bradley County and from Grant County back to Scott County.
Carla will miss Miller County but knows this move is the right one.
“I am an official mentor for a lot of people but I am also an unofficial mentor people will call. I was ready to take that next step and finish out my career,” she said.
In 2014, Carla was named Miller County’s first female staff chair after the retirements of her predecessors John Turner and Doug Petty, for whom she has great respect. She said the extension office employees are a tight-knit group, like a family.
Carla began working as a Miller County extension agent in 1991 after moving here from Oklahoma.
“I started out as a 4-H agent and home economist. I did everything in the home EC area, except for foods and nutrition. So, I got to work with the kids, the leaders, 4-H projects, organize new 4-H clubs. I created a hands-on science camp that we did every summer for eight years and we would have a waiting list. I never had to advertise it, and it was before STEM was prominent,” she said.
Carla said she has always been a big believer in teaching, learning and doing, which are all interconnected.
“We all learn better when we get involved with our hands,” she said.
In the mid-90s, her focus as an extension agent turned to family and consumer sciences.
“I’ve done Mediterranean cooking schools and that is hands-on. They come into a kitchen setting and the participants prepare the recipes. We do education about the different regions and what the olive oils are good for as well as why we want to make healthier choices. It is a two-day session and we do Eastern and Western, and then we talk about the education and research behind it,” she said.
While the Internet brings a plethora of information, Carla said vetting that information and ensuring its research is backed by credible sources are important.
“We go to our phone for a lot of information nowadays and that is when we need to figure out if the source is reliable and research-based. You can find a recipe on the Internet, but if you don’t have the cooking basics or know the terminology, it is hard to know what to do. You have to have that human interaction to get the basics. I can tell you that you need to julienne the carrots, but if you’ve never done that before, you may want to dice them instead,” Carla said.
Carla said she finds enjoyment in diabetic cooking schools.
“I love to do diabetic cooking schools. That is usually a four-part series we get in the kitchen and cook diabetic recipes … people often think their lives are over if they are a diabetic. You can still eat like everybody else but you have to make smart choices. If we would all eat like a diabetic eats, we would all be healthier,” she said.
Growing up in a small community south of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Carla was active in 4-H. That experience, and the support of her parents as leaders in the organization, taught her valuable lessons.
“My projects when I was a 4-Her were foods and sewing clothing. I remember (at the age of 9) I made a pink tote bag. My mother was a 4-H Sewing Club leader. She is an excellent seamstress. Hence, here is the problem: I ripped that tote bag handle out five times to get it perfect. But because she made me rip it out five times, I learned to use a seam ripper better than I wanted to and I got Best of Show at the Tulsa state fair, which is a huge fair,” she said.
She still has the seam ripper.
“And the first baking project I did was snickerdoodle cookies. My 4-H foods project book is framed and I kept it in my office. It is going with me to Little Rock,” she said.
She has several fond memories of her childhood experiences in 4-H.
“We also did a lot of community service as 4-Hers and the one I think about often is we adopted a nursing home and decorated the residents’ doors for the holidays, so we learned at an early age the importance of giving back.”
Growing up, Carla thought she would be a schoolteacher. But when she interned with a Payne County, Oklahoma, extension agent, the experience steered her career path to educating people outside of a classroom.
She was taken with the way the extension agent connected with the people.
“It was the interaction with the people that she had. It was a female 4-H agent and the interaction she had with the 4-H youth and the volunteers and parents. You could see the admiration both ways among everyone. You could see caring and it was that positive relationship they had and I am a people person,” Carla said.
Afterward, she followed through on her student-teaching obligations.
“If I wanted to teach, I could,” she said.
Carla graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science in home economics education and community services from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
She set the marks for national recognition early in her career by winning two awards in communications from the National Association of Extension Home Economists in 1994 and 1995.
In 2012, she earned her Masters of Science in human environmental sciences from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. That same year, she received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Extension Association of Family & Consumer Sciences.
In the past five years she has honored with these awards:
n National Award Innovative Youth Development Programming Award -Team (2019) National Extension Association of Family & Consumer Sciences
■ Outstanding County Extension Agent Award (2018) Arkansas Association of Cooperative Extension Specialists
■ John W. White Outstanding County Extension Educator Award (2017)
■ Continued Excellence Award (2016) National Extension Association of Family & Consumer Science
Carla also has written more than 1,260 columns in the Texarkana Gazette’s weekly food section.
Among Carla’s all-time favorite recipes, she lists a Rosemary Orange Thumbprint Cookie.
“It is wonderful. It is like a light butter cookie with an apricot center. There’s (also) a bruschetta I’ve done through Mediterranean cooking that is very good. There is a pork and olive tenderloin that is really good and a lemon egg-drop soup,” she said.
Leaving Miller County will not be easy, particularly in light of the recent flooding of the Miller County Courthouse, where extension offices were on the second floor. Even before last month’s flooding, the local extension service was moving to the Miller County Senior Citizens Center at 1007 Jefferson Ave.
Carla said she is grateful for her decades-long career in Miller County and the friendships she has made.
“I have such such wonderful relationships. I’ve worked closely with extension homemakers, 4-Hers and 4-H leaders and parents, and then of course Master Gardeners. I’ve worked with the Miller County Fair, the Four States Fair, Farm Bureau and the Texarkana Regional Center on Aging. It’s been absolutely phenomenal,” she said. “I have made so many contacts. I can just pick up the phone and call. We have such fantastic organizations. I’m going to miss Miller County, the people and my co-workers.”
Carla hopes others will choose a career path with the extension service and says it has a been an enriching, rewarding experience for her.
“If you love to help people and don’t want to sit behind a desk all the time, this is the job. No day is the same. I may be writing a news column, then I may move into teaching a yoga-for-kids clas, and then that night I may have a fair board meeting. It is very, very rewarding,” she said. “I really wish more high school students or adults would consider a career in family consumer sciences, and especially extension work, because you get to teach, but you don’t have to do it in a classroom.
“I love it, I can’t imagine doing anything else. It gets in your blood and you get those positive results in people and then I just feed off of that … it makes me want to do more and it makes me want to do better.” ■