When Melanie Malone started her career with the Faulkner County Cooperative Extension Service, she came on board to work in family and consumer sciences.
“No one knew what family and consumer sciences was, so I had to explain that it was home economics,” she said with a laugh.
When asked if she took home economics in junior or senior high school, she laughed again, and said, “No.”
“My mother would not let me take home economics in school, so I rebelled and became a county extension agent,” Malone said.
Now, some 19 years later, Malone, 46, is the new staff chair of the Faulkner County Cooperative Extension Service. Her promotion became effective Oct. 1.
The Faulkner County Cooperative Extension Service is part of the University
of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and has offices in all 75 Arkansas counties.
Malone’s first job with the local Extension Service was as a paid intern in 1997.
“When I interviewed for the intern position, I was asked how I reacted to stress,” Malone said. “I answered, ‘I laugh a lot.’ They told me, ‘You’ll be happy on this job.’
“It is a stressful job, but I just take it one day at a time.”
Malone was born in Stuttgart, a daughter of Robert and Linda Jones of Humphrey, which is near Stuttgart. Her dad is a semiretired farmer who raises rice and soybeans. Her mother worked as a teacher’s aide in the Stuttgart Public Schools, “but now she just takes care of Dad,” Malone said.
She has two brothers — Kevin Jones and Jeremy Jones, both of Stuttgart.
Malone graduated from Stuttgart High School in 1988 and came to Central Baptist College in Conway.
“I really did not know what I wanted to do when I came to Central Baptist — maybe find a boyfriend,” she said, laughing. “My best friend went to Central Baptist, so that’s why I chose it. I finished with an Associate of Arts degree in general studies in 1992. I was going to become an elementary school teacher. And I did meet somebody there.”
That is where she met her husband, Monty Malone, who is now an agronomist for Bayer Crop Science.
“We married in 1990, and I followed him to Southern
Arkansas University at Magnolia,”
she said. She attended SAU but finished her bachelor’s degree in child and family development in 1997 at the University of
Arkansas at Pine Bluff. She would return to college several years later and received a master’s degree in family and consumer sciences, with a specialization in dietetics and nutrition, from the University of Central Arkansas in 2008.
“Monty is the reason I am in extension,” she said. “When he graduated from SAU, he got a job in Little Rock with the Extension Service, and he would come home and talk about the home economists.
“I met one of them, Barbara King, who was the home economist in the extension office in Perry County,” Malone said. “She made her job sound like the best thing in the world. She is now retired, but she inspired me to become an extension agent.”
Malone said that when she became an intern at the Extension Service, “our office was in the basement of the old courthouse.
“Then when Laura Connerly left in 1998, I applied for an agent’s position. I worked until 2002, when my husband took a job in Searcy and moved us there. I taught first grade in a private school while we were there. We moved back in 2004, and I was able to go back to work at the Faulkner County Extension Service, where I have been ever since.”
As chair of the local Extension Service, Malone wears many hats. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day business in the office, which is now at 801 Locust St., she fills the roles of both the 4-H agent and the family and consumer sciences agent.
“I just love to help people,” she said.
Other staff members include Kami Marsh and Rebecca Thomas, agriculture agents, and Hannah White, clerical assistant.
“Family and consumer sciences is still taught in school,” said Malone, who served as interim chair of the Faulkner County Cooperative Extension Service for one year before being named chair. “It was known as home economics until 1994. I think the counties around here made the transition to the new name in 1994-95. It was family and consumer sciences when I came on board in 1997.
“Today, that field refers to a lot more than cooking and sewing,” she said. “Students can still learn to cook and sew, but the focus is more on nutrition and preparing healthy meals. We also talk about budget and finance, housing and interior design, food science, textiles and apparel, consumer issues and more.”
Malone said 4-H has also changed over the years, and today, clubs focus on more than just showing livestock.
“We have more than 500 kids in 22 clubs in 4-H throughout Faulkner County,” Malone said. “We are working to obtain a grant to help us establish 4-H clubs in our schools. Some places in Arkansas do have 4-H clubs that meet at schools, but we do not. It takes money, plus a staff.”
Malone said there is not much travel involved in her job, but she does go to area schools to present programs.
“A lot of what I do is in schools,” she said. “We have gardens in nine schools in the county. Kami [Marsh] talks about what to plant in the garden, and I talk about how to eat what we plant by giving a program on nutrition.
“The Extension Service recently developed Yoga for Kids,” Malone said. “We take that program to schools,
as well.”
Malone said the local Extension Service office also presents programs in high schools and works with UCA student interns.
Malone said she is teaching a new exercise class — Extension Get Fit — at the Extension Service office. This class is a community-based strength-training program for adults. The cost is $12 a year.
“We remodeled a room here at the office where we can teach this class,” Malone said, noting that the building that now houses the Extension Service was formerly the Faulkner County Courts Building. The Extension Service moved to its current location in 2014 from the Faulkner County Natural Resource Center on Amity Road; that building is now part of Antioch Baptist Church.
Other classes are held periodically at the Extension Service office, and some 4-H groups meet there as well.
Malone and her husband have four daughters — Courtney, 24, who studied interior design at The Art Institute of Tennessee at Nashville; Caroline, 19, who is working at the Conway Regional Fitness Center; Raegan, 16, who
attends Conway Christian High School; and Mallory, 11, who also attends Conway Christian schools.
“Courtney and Caroline
will be leaving soon for Georgetown, Texas, to help plant a church there,” Malone said. “They are on a team from our church, Antioch Baptist, that is going there to start a church. This is the first time our church has done this.”
When she is not working, Malone does enjoy some
hobbies.
“Cooking is my passion,” she said. “I am not a baker — that’s too much science for me. I like to create my own dishes. I even do some catering on
the side.
“And I love to travel. I go to the beach every chance I get; it is my favorite place on Earth. We usually go as a family.”
Malone and her family attend Antioch Baptist Church, where she and her husband help teach a class — Fusion — for couples who have been married five to 10 years.
“We also work with college kids at church,” she said.
Malone is a member of several organizations, including the Conway Regional Women’s
Council, the Farm Bureau Women’s Committee and the Faulkner County Health
Coalition.
“I’m also a homeroom mother at Conway Christian, and Monty and I are members of the Booster Club,” she said, laughing. “Whatever the kids are into, we support. Mallory plays basketball and is on the jump-rope team, and Raegan plays volleyball and softball.”