Longtime Extension radio broadcaster retires

A fixture on Extension radio is shutting off his microphone with no regrets as he did his part to help agriculture producers, who are the backbone of rural communities.

Eric Atkinson, a radio specialist and agriculture director of the K-State Radio Network, signed off as host of Agriculture Today in mid-June after a nearly 40-year career and it has been a memorable ride, he said. Agriculture Today is a daily radio show with podcasts from Kansas State University and K-State Research and Extension.

“There has been many ebbs and flows in the agricultural industry,” he said.

He started during the height of the farm crisis when agricultural producers’ incomes plummeted. Extension radio, he remembers, provided many programs not only about the bottom line but the mental health and other aspects during that stressful era.

Atkinson said as the crisis eased better times started and when Congress unveiled the Freedom-to-Farm programs, he spent many hours traveling the state. Policy experts, like the late Barry Flinchbaugh, provided insight into the most significant farm program change since the Great Depression. Atkinson said educating farmers and ranchers was and continues to be the mission of Agriculture Today.

On Christmas Eve in 2003, Atkinson quickly put together a program about the report of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the United States. He pulled together Jim Mintert, then the Extension state leader in the Department of Agricultural Economics, and Larry Hollis, then a new Extension beef veterinarian, to educate producers and consumers about the scare and its impact on markets.

“You have these type of events that occur just like today with Ukraine,” he said. “Agriculture is a cyclical business. It’s been a call for us to respond and to do all we can to help inform people.”

Along the way, besides getting to know many producers, he got to spend time with K-State’s stable of Extension professionals in Manhattan, the experiment stations and county offices. Those unsung heroes whose feedback from farmers, ranchers and their families is the backbone of a successful Extension program.

There were so many people to recall he was reluctant to single any out but Atkinson said Flinchbaugh, a farm policy expert, was one of his favorites because he was so engaging and personable.

A Winfield, Kansas, native who grew up on a family farm, Atkinson says an opportunity at Winfield High School to develop his public speaking skills in FFA was crucial to his career. Also in high school he and other students provided news reports about the high school to a local radio station. After graduation in 1974, he went to K-State to earn a bachelor’s in radio and television broadcasting in the school of journalism in 1978.

He worked at several Kansas radio stations, including a short stint at KWLS in Pratt and then spent one year covering news and sports for KCLY in Clay Center. Atkinson returned to his alma mater to earn a master’s in journalism and mass communications from K-State in 1982 and then went to work at a public radio station in Hutchinson.

When the longtime host of Agriculture Today, Paul DeWeese, unexpectedly died in March 1983, Atkinson was encouraged to apply—to this day he considers himself fortunate to be selected as DeWeese’s replacement—and the young broadcaster started his career with Agriculture Today in July 1983.

Atkinson remembers in those days, even during the farm crisis, how agriculture, companies and suppliers were evolving rapidly as a result of technology that helps producers to be more efficient with their crops, livestock or equipment, and those trends will continue. It is exciting, he said, to see the developments in precision agriculture that will pay big dividends in irrigation and combatting weeds, a perennial nemesis. Autonomous equipment is another sector that he expects will be in the news for many years.

Agriculture Today, he said, helps to feed the need for knowledge that farmers and ranchers need to operate a successful operation.

“Producers have to be technically savvy with their business as well as be able to run a Crescent wrench,” he quipped. “It is really quite impressive to see all the tools they have to share data and automate different tasks. There is always something new to learn.”

Atkinson thanked the many listeners who followed the program whether it was on the radio or podcasts. Agriculture Today continues to be on KFRM, KBUF and KVGB. While he is looking forward to retirement, he plans to stay active on his rural Wabaunsee County home with his wife, Rhonda, and work on audio projects about Kansas agriculture and related topics.

Atkinson’s replacement is Samantha Bennett. Raised as an Army brat, she spent most of her childhood growing up in Enterprise, Alabama. Upon graduating high school, Bennett attended Auburn University where she became passionate about the agricultural industry and advocating on its behalf. After graduating with a bachelor’s in animal sciences in May 2020 from Auburn she began her graduate studies that fall.

During her graduate studies Bennett, an avid listener of podcasts herself, decided to embark on creating her own podcast with experts covering agricultural topics of interest to those not directly involved in agriculture. Through her graduate research and podcasting experiences, Bennett created a unique skill set in agricultural communications, which ultimately led to her new role at Kansas State University.

She said she is both honored and thrilled to be taking on the role of director and producer of Agriculture Today.

Dave Bergmeier can be reached at 620-227-1822 or [email protected].