Gallagher ends career at Penn State Extension
In 1962 Bill Gallagher had $5,700 and a choice. “I could either buy a new Chevrolet Corvette or go to college,’ Gallagher said.
He went to West Virginia University where he learned the profession he will retire from on Sept. 30.
For 35 years, Gallagher has served the Penn State Cooperative Extension in Fayette County as a county agent and educator. During that time, he has had oversight of horticulture, pesticide, 4-H Youth and Adult programs and is coordinator of the Master Gardener Program for Fayette, Greene and Washington counties.
He is a member of the Pennsylvania Association of Extension 4-H Agents, the Pennsylvania Association of County Agricultural Agents and Epsilon Sigma Phi. He has private and public pesticide licenses in agricultural, agronomic, demonstration and research categories.
And he will be honored at a retirement party Sept. 25 at the Fayette County Fairgrounds.
But with a lifetime in an agriculture-related career, it may surprise some that Gallagher grew up on a city street in Brownsville.
“No one in my immediate family had any farming experience,’ he said.
“My family had a small garden in the back yard. There was an Italian gentleman who lived a couple of doors away and he sold produce. He invited me to make a garden on his property. I was almost 8 and a couple of other boys and I started to make that garden bigger and bigger.’
He continued growing and selling produce and working on farms near Brownsville until he reached college age. During a visit with his sister while she was a student at WVU, Gallagher said he made up his mind that agriculture was going to be “the thing for me.’
So, after graduating in 1962 from Brownsville High School, he enrolled at WVU, where he graduated in 1967 with his bachelor of science degree in agriculture and in 1968 with his master’s in the same subject.
He went to work for Perdue Foods of Salisbury, Md., in its poultry research unit.
“I worked with thousands and thousands of broilers, which was good from the research standpoint. But I didn’t think my future was in broilers.
“I came back home and this job was open so I applied for it,’ he said.
“When I started, Rex Carter was the county agent. We had two secretaries in the office. Mary Anderson was the home economist.
“Rex was ill and not in the office the first day I started work and he left instructions for me to go out and start some livestock projects. We formed the Fayette County Beef Producers Association. Then I worked in the agronomy program, which dealt with corn and alfalfa. I also worked heavily in 4-H,’ the youth program.
Later, another 4-H agent was added to the staff, who worked with Gallagher.
“They also hired a nutritionist who worked with the School Club program. That program has to do with anything involving science. It’s in nearly all the school districts in the county and the clubs have from five to 140 members each. There are about 2,600 students enrolled, with about 400 of those in clubs for handicapped students.’
In 1994, the university realigned the local extension program, which included changing Gallagher’s areas of responsibility. Don Fretts joined the office and took over much of the livestock and agronomy work. There was more staff sharing between nearby county extension offices as well.
“They gave me the responsibility of horticulture and that’s when we began the master gardener program.’ Gallagher said about 150 people have graduated from it in the past decade.
“We test and evaluate flowers that we can grow in Pennsylvania. Master gardeners also work in their own communities where they provide 50 hours of volunteer service each year. We also have a newsletter ‘Cultivating Notes.”
“We have plots on Route 119 and Route 40 in Hopwood,’ grown with Gallagher’s and local master gardeners’ help.
But another favorite project in his career has been the annual 4-H Livestock Auction held at the Fayette County Fair. This year’s sale netted more than $257,000. Buyers donate some of the money to a scholarship program for 4-H members.
The Livestock Scholarship Fund, established in 1980, Gallagher said, has awarded more than $141,000 to 223 4-H student members.
“Seeing the kids getting scholarships and going on to school has always been a benchmark for me,’ he said.
“What we try to do is education and teaching and it has paid off for a lot of people in the program.’
An example of that comes from his own home. He and his wife, Janet, a home economics teacher at Laurel Highlands Senior High School, have five children, all graduates of Penn State.
Christa, 29, is a librarian at Marclay and Franklin schools in the Uniontown School District. Trisha, 25, is a cardiac nurse at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Then there are the triplets: Lance, 23, is studying in the master’s program at the University of Idaho; Jana is a nutritionist at Turkey Hill Farms in Lancaster County; and Kara is a business-education teacher at the Hempfield School District, also in Lancaster County.
Gallagher has never halted his own education and currently is doing course work at California University of Pennsylvania and Penn State.
Gallagher said “more and more people are getting into this business (agriculture) and it is expanding.
“But family farming – I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it will be more difficult.’ Gallagher hopes that new marketing programs will better address farmers’ needs and raise their profits.
“There has to be a market for your product and you must be able to at least break even and pay your bills. As more and more land is taken over by large farms, it’s going to be different. It also depends on what the public wants in terms of the product. We have farmers who have day jobs and farm on the side,’ people Gallagher has worked with for more than three decades.
As for his future, Gallagher said he hopes to move into “some phase of an agriculture-related job.
“We just bought 11 acres in Menallen Township so I plan to have a large garden,’ he said.
But he never did get that Corvette. “I bought a Mustang when I started working here,’ he joked.
His retirement party is open to anyone and will feature a hog roast. More information on attending can be obtained by calling the extension office at 724-438-0111 before Sept. 20.