Overton County Commission approved an additional 4-H employee for its UT Extension Office at its Monday meeting.
Co-Director Christina Swallows said that the opportunity for an additional employee was rare. Swallows said that Governor Bill Lee recently made the allowance for additional employees for smaller counties. She said that the extra help will allow current Overton 4-H Agent Nicole Marrero to extend her services.
“There’ll be more programs that can be offered as a result,” Swallows said. “Because Nicole can only spread herself so thin. And also as a result, some of the programs she’s not real comfortable with, she’ll give those over and pick up some different ones that she likes to do. So it’s really a win-win for our county.”
County Executive Ben Danner said that the county will pay 22 percent of the new employee, with benefits and the rest of the salary paid for by TSU. Marrero said she looks forward to enhancing Overton’s 4-H program further.
“This is an exciting time to be in Overton 4-H because we have one of the best facilities I believe in the state,” Marrero said. “Because we have large meeting rooms, small meeting rooms, a larger office, computer access for the kids to access programs. We had two of our 4-H members have full rides to college this fall, and we had two other ones that were on partial scholarships so this is a really exciting opportunity.”
The position will be housed through UT’s sister school, Tennessee State University. Swallows said that the next step will be going through the process of announcing the position. Those interested can go through TSU to learn more information about the application.
In other business, Danner was re-elected to commission chair. Rickman’s District Four Commissioner Billie Phipps was re-elected for Chairman pro-term. Danner will continue to preside over county commission meetings with Phipps stepping in should Danner be unavailable.
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