Remembering the nation's first female county extension agent
It’s not every day that an old friend becomes a museum exhibit.
The New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces recently opened an exhibit, “Beyond the Farm: Groundbreaking Agriculture,” to honor seven people. One was the late Jessie Fitzgerald, the nation’s first female county extension agent.
When I met Jessie, I was a rookie reporter in Grants, and we were part of a circle of women friends, all with challenging jobs. Not until much later did I learn Jessie came from a historic family and had herself made history.
Jessie Fenton Fitzgerald grew up on a homestead in the Jemez Mountains. Fenton Lake was named for her family. Her mother home-schooled Jessie, and she finished high school at Menaul School in Albuquerque. In 1950 she married Dick Fitzgerald, and for eight summers Jessie and Dick both worked as cowboys.
On the Baca Ranch, now part of Valles Caldera National Preserve, Frank Bond needed a ranch foreman. Hiring a woman was unheard of, so he hired Dick.
“Daddy hired Richard Fitzgerald in order to have Jessie. She was one of best horsemen in the world,” said Mary Ann Bond Bunten.
Jessie and Dick had a small ranch in Cebolla. When the marriage ended, Jessie moved her two young sons into an old dugout in Española and looked for a job. Despite her skills and knowledge, area ranchers and even the local feed store wouldn’t hire a woman.
She then ran 4-H clubs all over the Jemez Mountains, working with County Extension Agent Jim Sais. She needed a job, and Sais offered her summer work as an aide with New Mexico State University’s extension program. Sais encouraged her to complete a bachelor’s degree so she could work in agricultural research or teaching. She wanted to be a county ag extension agent and wouldn’t be dissuaded.
No woman had ever held that job, but Sais arranged for Jessie to meet NMSU Assistant Dean of Agriculture Josh Enzie, who thought it was entirely possible. At age 37 she returned to school.
During summer breaks she worked at Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico as a dude wrangler and volunteer on wilderness rides. She helped many a rider gain confidence with horses.
In 1970 Jessie earned her bachelor’s degree in agricultural and extension education in 1970. The official story is that Jessie immediately became the nation’s first female county ag extension agent. Well, no.
Her friend Linda Grilli Calhoun recalls that at NMSU she and Jessie ran into a friend, Ted Arviso, who worked in NMSU’s personnel office. He asked if she’d been hired yet. She hadn’t. All summer, the office said they had nothing available.
“Because of the civil rights laws, they couldn’t just come out and say they weren’t going to hire her because she was female,” Calhoun said. “They were just hoping she’d get discouraged and go find something else.”
Calhoun told Jessie and Arviso the school’s stonewalling was illegal and offered to put Jessie in touch with the ACLU. Arviso apparently informed personnel, and suddenly they had an opening. NMSU offered her a job as extension agent on the condition that “if it turns out to be too much for you, you’ll resign without a fight.”
Jessie was the agent in Grants for 22 years, earning many honors. When she retired in 1992 there were hundreds of female ag extension agents. She died in 2013 at age 83.
Calhoun recalls that Jessie always believed the ripe apple was green first; all accomplished people were once beginners, so each of us should pass on what we know.
I have a faded, hand-written sign in my office that once hung in Jessie’s office: “TRIUMPH is TRI with a little UMPH added.”
This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Remembering the nation's first female county extension agent
