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Jul. 8, 2013 Source: Troublesome Creek Media news release From Troublesome Creek: A Farm Boy's Encounters on the Way to a University Presidency, is a recently published memoir by Iowa native Dr. Duane Acker, who served as president of Kansas State University and, later, assistant secretary of USDA. The 284-page book is mostly a series of anecdotes and experiences, from his early years on the farm through his time at five land grant universities, encounters that prepared him for the Kansas State presidency. After stories from his early years, Acker shares what life is like as a college instructor, such as finding an army colonel enrolled in the first class he taught as a 22-year-old instructor at Oklahoma A&M, judging a county 4-H and FFA show with separate classes for the animals of black and white youth, and, at Iowa State, frustrations and satisfactions in up-dating a freshman course. He also shares some secrets he learned about advising students so they can succeed, and he mentions his first administrative job, where he found himself supervising a 65-year-old former teacher. As dean at South Dakota State, Acker tells about a farmer testing his credibility to be a dean, dealings with governors and legislators, dropping red punch in the lap of the dean of women, and he and his wife dining at the White House with other agricultural leaders. Before moving on to the Kansas State presidency, Acker was vice chancellor for Nebraska's then new institute of agriculture and natural resources at Nebraska. He not only tells the history and consequences of that structure, but also describes some specific events, such as a conflict in naming a corn disease and a day on a horse in Nebraska's sand hills. Acker earned his graduate degrees in animal nutrition, intent on joining the animal feed industry. Among the more revealing stories in his memoir are several encounters that tested that interest and intent vs. the satisfactions of teaching and advising students, the latter eventually leading to college and university leadership. After eleven years in the Kansas State presidency and his time in Washington, Acker returned to operate the family farm near Atlantic, Iowa, to work on several value added agriculture projects, and to write. From Troublesome Creek is available as an e-book, as well as in soft and hard cover, at www.iuniverse.com and other on-line book stores. Tweet |
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