Curtis Ends 34-Year Extension Career Auburn, Dec. 8, 2003 --- Larry Curtis, Extension biosystems engineer and Auburn University professor of biosystems engineering, will retire in December, ending a 34-year Extension career. A native of the Mossy Grove community, he grew up on a farm where his father raised cotton, peanuts and livestock. Curtis, who began driving a tractor at age 10, grew up during a time when mechanization was making steep inroads into farming. Yet, as he recalled, cotton was handpicked and there was plenty of “drudgery and labor” still associated with agriculture at the time. It was a desire to end this back-breaking labor for his father and other family members that inspired him to earn a degree from what was then known as the agricultural engineering (now biosystems engineering) program at Auburn University. He not only completed his bachelor’s degree but earned a master’s in agricultural engineering in 1967 before beginning his military obligation, which included a tour of duty in South Vietnam. After his discharge from the Army in 1969, Curtis received an 18-month grant from the University of Florida’s Cooperative Extension program to help the state’s fern industry adopt calibrated spraying equipment so the plants could be raised under shade. When the grant was completed, he went to work with the Florida Department of Natural Resources helping control the growth of aquatic vegetation that had begun to choke canals, rivers and lakes throughout the state. Much of his work involved traveling on air boats and on planes that landed on water. “Quite an exiting thing to do when you’re young,” he recalled. Three year later, Curtis was contacted by the head of the University of Georgia’s Agricultural Engineering Department at the University of Georgia to interview for a job as an irrigation specialist. His duties include overseeing expansion of irrigation in a 17-county area in southwest Georgia at a time when irrigation had expanded from a few thousand acres to a half-million acres. Curtis’ focus originally had been in material properties of plants, though he had studied all aspects of agricultural engineering, including irrigation, as a student at Auburn. He credits this phase of his career, especially working with farmers and equipment dealers, with providing him an intimate knowledge of irrigation technology --- one that equipped him for the professional challenges that followed. In 1976, he was hired by the then-Alabama Cooperative Extension Service as an agricultural engineer with statewide responsibilities for irrigation, water management and erosion control. Curtis emerged as a national leader in irrigation-related issues serving in several national capacities with the National Irrigation Association. In 2000, the Irrigation Association named him Person of the Year for his outstanding contributions to his industry. He also has served on the national board that administers testing of and certification for the design, installation and construction of irrigation equipment. In Alabama, Curtis is perhaps best known for his research and Extension work associated with a $1.5 million grant provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority. The data he has collected through this research has enabled him to develop a comprehensive water resource management and development program for Alabama farmers. Particularly noteworthy is his research in subsurface drip irrigation, which has been adopted by farmers in the Tennessee Valley as well as in west and southeast Alabama. In addition to farmers, Curtis’ work has benefited the state’s multimillion-dollar horticulture and turf grass industries. Following his retirement, Curtis will continue to work with the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station on a part-time basis, which will enable him to continue his irrigation research at the Tennessee Valley and Wiregrass Research and Extension Centers. (Writer: Jim Langcuster, Extension Communications Specialist, News and Public Affairs, 334-844-5686.)