Donna Chickering
Community Leadership Training Coordinator
Southern Oregon
• About Me:
I was born in northwest Iowa and raised on our family farm, a diversified farm that was the norm before the infamous Earl Butz “Get big or get out” admonition to family farmers during the Nixon administration (we got out). That meant I was privileged to grow up on a farm with a commercial beef herd, a registered beef herd (Aberdeen Angus), a dairy herd (primarily Holsteins with a few Ayrshires and Guernsey thrown in), chickens, horses, barn cats, a dog, two sisters, and an array of crops including corn, soybeans, hay, oats, straw, and sorghum-sudan. It was nirvana! Like many small farm kids I went away to school at the local land grant university (Iowa State), where I began my love affair with attending college. Four colleges and three degrees later (with LOTS of classes in natural resources, education and interpretation, and social sciences) I took a faculty position with University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, where I was allowed to blend my passions for natural resources, environmental education, and rural communities. Fourteen plus years in Tucson, the desert began to wear on me so I moved northward to settle in Grants Pass, Oregon. Since moving back to Oregon (I actually attended Southern Oregon State College in the 80s), I have worked at various non-profits including a watershed council, a wildlife rehabilitation center, a field institute, the American Red Cross, and now, the best of the best: RDI!
Anyone who really knows me knows that I’m an incredibly happy person who can’t imagine a day without laughter, that I’m totally in love with my kids, Stubby (an adoring and adorable brown mackerel tabby Manx) and Frosty (a ravishingly beautiful palomino Quarter Horse mare), and that I feel completely blessed to have been able to take care of both of my parents at the ends of their lives. Life has been very-very good to me!
• What I do at RDI:
I’m pretty much 100% charged with delivery of the Ford Institute Leadership Program in communities throughout southern Oregon and Siskiyou County, California. As I’m a relatively new to RDI (December 2007), I’ve been operating in the “getting up to speed” mode. But after going over my work plan this past week, I see that it’s now “full speed ahead!”
• State where I was born:
Iowa…and darned proud of it!
• What I wanted to be when I was 8 years old:
A cowgirl…more specifically Dale Evans. (Though now I can’t recall if it was because of her horse, Buttermilk, or her cowboy, Roy Rogers!)
• Interesting previous job(s) I've held:
One summer I worked administering surveys for the National Park Service Visitor Services Project. One of the sites I was responsible for was Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (Lake Powell). My work entailed riding around in a ranger boat, identifying survey participants (boaters), and jumping overboard to wade or swim the visitor surveys to them. That was a blast!
• One of my personal goals for :
Simplify my life. To that end I plan on getting rid of much of my material clutter, holding a gargantuan garage sale this summer.
• A place I want to visit at least once in my lifetime:
Someday I’d like to visit my ancestral haunts in Switzerland and England, but if I don’t get there I won’t be devastated. I’m pretty easily taken by any new adventure, though I’m partial to the great outdoors.
• My favorite book and why:
Wow…that’s a tough one! There are so many great books that I’ve loved…and many not-so-great ones that I still enjoyed immensely (I mean, how can you not love a Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich or a Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mystery by Tony Hillerman?)! A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, My Ántonio by Willa Cather, The Snow Goose by Paul Galico, The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy, The World According to Garp by John Irving, Seabisquit by Laura Hillenbrand, The Chosen by Chaim Potok, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter…these will always stand out as time-tested favorites for me. It’s impossible for me to have one favorite or read too much!
• My favorite board game:
I never met a board game that I didn’t like! In fact, I LOVE board games! Do I hear the Jeopardy theme song playing in the background? Sign me up for Taboo, Balderdash, Pictionary, Password, Sequence, Pente, The Settlers of Catan…and don’t forget Pit, Dominoes, Cribbage, Canasta, Pinochle, 500, and other card games…
• The coolest thing someone has done for me:
Well, this might not exactly be the coolest thing ever, but it’s certainly the most recent coolest thing…and that’s that someone asked me to work for RDI!
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Community Leadership Training Coordinator
Southern Oregon
• About Me:
I was born in northwest Iowa and raised on our family farm, a diversified farm that was the norm before the infamous Earl Butz “Get big or get out” admonition to family farmers during the Nixon administration (we got out). That meant I was privileged to grow up on a farm with a commercial beef herd, a registered beef herd (Aberdeen Angus), a dairy herd (primarily Holsteins with a few Ayrshires and Guernsey thrown in), chickens, horses, barn cats, a dog, two sisters, and an array of crops including corn, soybeans, hay, oats, straw, and sorghum-sudan. It was nirvana! Like many small farm kids I went away to school at the local land grant university (Iowa State), where I began my love affair with attending college. Four colleges and three degrees later (with LOTS of classes in natural resources, education and interpretation, and social sciences) I took a faculty position with University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, where I was allowed to blend my passions for natural resources, environmental education, and rural communities. Fourteen plus years in Tucson, the desert began to wear on me so I moved northward to settle in Grants Pass, Oregon. Since moving back to Oregon (I actually attended Southern Oregon State College in the 80s), I have worked at various non-profits including a watershed council, a wildlife rehabilitation center, a field institute, the American Red Cross, and now, the best of the best: RDI!
Anyone who really knows me knows that I’m an incredibly happy person who can’t imagine a day without laughter, that I’m totally in love with my kids, Stubby (an adoring and adorable brown mackerel tabby Manx) and Frosty (a ravishingly beautiful palomino Quarter Horse mare), and that I feel completely blessed to have been able to take care of both of my parents at the ends of their lives. Life has been very-very good to me!
• What I do at RDI:
I’m pretty much 100% charged with delivery of the Ford Institute Leadership Program in communities throughout southern Oregon and Siskiyou County, California. As I’m a relatively new to RDI (December 2007), I’ve been operating in the “getting up to speed” mode. But after going over my work plan this past week, I see that it’s now “full speed ahead!”
• State where I was born:
Iowa…and darned proud of it!
• What I wanted to be when I was 8 years old:
A cowgirl…more specifically Dale Evans. (Though now I can’t recall if it was because of her horse, Buttermilk, or her cowboy, Roy Rogers!)
• Interesting previous job(s) I've held:
One summer I worked administering surveys for the National Park Service Visitor Services Project. One of the sites I was responsible for was Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (Lake Powell). My work entailed riding around in a ranger boat, identifying survey participants (boaters), and jumping overboard to wade or swim the visitor surveys to them. That was a blast!
• One of my personal goals for :
Simplify my life. To that end I plan on getting rid of much of my material clutter, holding a gargantuan garage sale this summer.
• A place I want to visit at least once in my lifetime:
Someday I’d like to visit my ancestral haunts in Switzerland and England, but if I don’t get there I won’t be devastated. I’m pretty easily taken by any new adventure, though I’m partial to the great outdoors.
• My favorite book and why:
Wow…that’s a tough one! There are so many great books that I’ve loved…and many not-so-great ones that I still enjoyed immensely (I mean, how can you not love a Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich or a Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mystery by Tony Hillerman?)! A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, My Ántonio by Willa Cather, The Snow Goose by Paul Galico, The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy, The World According to Garp by John Irving, Seabisquit by Laura Hillenbrand, The Chosen by Chaim Potok, Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter…these will always stand out as time-tested favorites for me. It’s impossible for me to have one favorite or read too much!
• My favorite board game:
I never met a board game that I didn’t like! In fact, I LOVE board games! Do I hear the Jeopardy theme song playing in the background? Sign me up for Taboo, Balderdash, Pictionary, Password, Sequence, Pente, The Settlers of Catan…and don’t forget Pit, Dominoes, Cribbage, Canasta, Pinochle, 500, and other card games…
• The coolest thing someone has done for me:
Well, this might not exactly be the coolest thing ever, but it’s certainly the most recent coolest thing…and that’s that someone asked me to work for RDI!
> Click to Return to Staff Listing