Departmental News

UW honors 60-year Cooperative Extension Service 'matriarch'

This country girl has put a few miles behind her – and wants to put on a few more traveling during retirement.

Stella McKinstry will notch her 60^th year working for the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service (UW CES) April 15. The Sublette County nutrition and food safety educator is working part-time until a full-time person is hired for the CES office in Pinedale.

The University of Wyoming Board of Trustees will recognize McKinstry’s service Friday afternoon during its meeting in Old Main on the UW campus.

“Stella has had an amazing career with UW CES,” said Glen Whipple, associate dean in the College of Agriculture and director of the CES. “Sixty years of service is one thing; probably more impressive is the sustained quality and timeliness of her works over each of those 60 years.”

Whipple described her as a dedicated, life-long learner.  “Her zest for life, attitude of service and joy in learning are an inspiration to each of us in cooperative extension – an organization dedicated to life-long learning,” he noted. “She will be greatly missed by cooperative extension and the people of Sublette County.”

During her first year with CES –1946 – she worked as an extension agent-at-large in Albany, Niobrara, Fremont, Lincoln, Natrona and Goshen counties.

Colorado had almost landed her instead of Wyoming. “The reason I came to Wyoming instead of Colorado is that the starting salary here was $2,100, and down there was $1,800,” she said. “That was a good wage. That $300 made the difference.”

Wyoming has gotten its money’s worth. She’s met countless times with Wyoming residents and says she never was tempted to leave CES.

“It is a satisfying job. I liked it all the time. You never work a day in your life if you enjoy it,” she said. “There is enough challenge, variety and independence. You are working with lots of different kinds of people with different interests, so there is a challenge any direction you go.”

Mary Martin, Teton County CES educator, has known McKinstry her entire 32 years with CES, and attributes her success to having McKinstry as a mentor.  Martin was advised when she started her job to contact McKinstry if she had questions.

“It started off as a mentorship and has become a very good friendship,” said Martin. “When she leaves CES, it won’t be a loss for me. Stella will still be in my life.”

The hospital building in Jackson where McKinstry was born to Linda and Harold McKinstry still stands but is now the Browse and Buy secondhand store, a block off the town square to the north. Her mother, who was from Massachusetts, met her father while teaching in Washington, D.C. He brought her to his homestead out a ways from old Moran (the town of Moran was moved from its initial location). The homestead is now part of Grand Teton National Park. McKinstry has a brother, Neal, and a late sister, Jeanne.

Martin accompanied McKinstry one day to see the homestead site. “That was an interesting day when we went to the park to see where the house was. You can still see the foundation,” noted Martin.

McKinstry’s parents moved to Casper when she was 3, then to a cattle and silver fox ranch about 28 miles west of Denver two years later. She graduated from high school in Fort Collins and graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in home economics. She would later earn a master’s degree.

She flirted with teaching but chose to educate through the extension service. A single woman driving her own car through the society of the 1940s, she would work in several counties a month at a time.

“I was received fine by people,” she said. “I think one of the things that was interesting is there weren’t too many women who had cars at that point. People couldn’t figure out how a single woman could have a car and be independent. My first car cost $600. It was a four-door Ford – a cute little car.”<

But then, McKinstry’s entire life has been different, said Martin. “Women didn’t have cars in those days,” she noted. “Stella had a master’s degree back when women didn’t get master’s degrees. Her whole life has been different from most women’s.”

McKinstry would work in Platte County for a time then transfer to Sublette County in 1952. She’s been there since. “My dad used to say ‘A colt always returns to where it was foaled,’” said McKinstry.

McKinstry, who will be 83 this year, is looking forward to working on the planning commission in Pinedale. “How many people 80+ years old are excited about being on a planning board?” quipped Martin.

She describes her friend as intellectually curious, young at heart, and one who loves the outdoors and travel. “She’s a very ethical and discerning person. I’ve known her 32 years and don’t believe I’ve ever heard her speak unkindly of anyone,” said Martin. “That’s not a trait you find among people much anymore.”

McKinstry has traveled to Australia, New Zealand, Jerusalem, the Virgin Islands, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany and Switzerland. She’s been to Canada and Alaska but not South America. “I’d like to go there,” she says, of travel during retirement.

Martin travels in Wyoming with McKinstry and says no matter where they go, someone knows her.

“People generally care for Stella and care about seeing her,” Martin noted. “She’s a person you are glad to know. For the extension field staff, there will be a hole when she leaves. We talk loosely of an extension ‘family.’ For a long time, she’s been the matriarch. People who know her are better for having her in their lives.”

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