Extension interns reflect on summer filled with hands-on challenges, travel and new skills
July 23, 2026
By Rebekah Hall
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Fast Facts
- Thirty college students from five states, Germany served as extension summer interns
- Interns worked alongside county agents, program specialists, extension educators
- Students say internship experience provided skills they will use in future careers
(1,493 words)
Download photos from interns’ programs
LITTLE ROCK — For Marlee Rainey, her summer internship with the Cooperative Extension Service helped her build confidence and taught her that “some things may challenge you, but challenge is good.”
Rainey, 19, will be a sophomore at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville this fall, where she is studying agriculture business on a pre-law track. Rainey was one of nine Experiential Scholars Program interns this summer, with a focus on water and soil conservation. She said her internship provided hands-on experience that will transfer to her career path.
“The whole reason I wanted to do this program is because I want to go into agricultural law and be an environmental lawyer, so I really wanted to get practical experience and see how rules and regulations look on the ground,” Rainey said. “So, being able to get my hands dirty through flume building and water, gas and soil sampling has been really rewarding, and I think will definitely serve me in my future career.”
Korbin Singleton, 22, who served as an agriculture county agent intern in Faulkner County, said the internship expanded his understanding of agriculture beyond his animal science major at Arkansas State University.
“I’ve learned a lot about a whole new side of the agriculture world that I really had no experience in before,” Singleton said. “This has opened an entirely new career path. In college, I’ve pretty much only been focusing on learning about animals, but through learning how to track different growth stages of crops, knowing what to sweep for and how to identify certain weeds, I feel like this opens up potential career paths for this role as a county agent, as well as other jobs — a lot more than I would have been exposed to otherwise.”
Abby Gifford, 21, is a food science major on a pre-med track at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. She said she particularly enjoyed traveling around Arkansas as part of her Experiential Scholars Program internship, with a focus on family and consumer sciences.
“I’ve learned so much about the greater Arkansas community by getting to be out and spend more time in it,” Gifford said. “I go to school in Fayetteville, and I’m from Rogers, so my whole life I’ve lived in northwest Arkansas. It was fascinating to see the rest of the state and explore it.”
Though Haden Richardson, 20, grew up showing livestock as a member of Arkansas 4-H, the Cooperative Extension Service’s youth development program, he said serving as an agriculture county agent intern in Conway County helped him become more familiar with the work of extension.
“I got to take a deeper dive into what extension has to offer, whether that’s through the programs that they have or the different opportunities there are to work for extension,” Richardson said. “I knew what the extension service was but understanding it to its full potential is what this internship’s been all about.”
Richardson will be a junior at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville this fall, where he is pursuing a double concentration in agricultural education and communication, with a minor in agricultural leadership. His goal is to become an agriculture educator, and he said his favorite part of the extension internship was getting to deliver 4-H programming.
“I think any time you get to work with 4-H youth and feed their passion for agriculture and see it blossom, that’s been the best,” Richardson said. “I feel grateful to have been an active participant in that entire process, laying the foundation of knowledge for those individuals, and making sure that they have a good foot to stand on when it comes to their future careers and opportunities for leadership.”
Hands-on learning
Rainey said that going into her internship, she was nervous about spending so much time outdoors, but this ended up being one of her favorite elements.
“The majority of this internship has been forcing myself to be comfortable in the uncomfortable and the unknown,” Rainey said. “I was very hesitant about being outside and around wildlife, but honestly, that has ironically become my favorite part.”
Rainey, whose internship project included creating a 4-H curriculum focused on water testing, said working with Lee Riley, extension program associate for environmental science and crop management for the Division of Agriculture, helped her become more confident.
“Going into building this curriculum, I was telling Mr. Riley, ‘I don’t know if I’m knowledgeable enough to create this,’” Rainey said. “And he just looked at me and said, ‘I’m here to help you, and you have resources here to help you as well, but I believe in you, and you can do it.’
“It helped me believe in myself and have the confidence of, ‘Yes, I know I’m a hard worker, and even if it’s hard at first doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it just means I need to try,’” Rainey said.
Richardson and Singleton collaborated on their internship project, where they performed a verification of a multiplier soybean field in Faulkner County. As neither of the students came from a background in row crop agriculture, both said the experience helped them better understand the role of extension agriculture agents and the needs of producers.
“We were sweeping the fields, tracking the insects, checking to see if there were any pest problems,” Singleton said. “We were tracking the crop height growth through the weeks, and we would record temperature levels.”
“On a day-to-day basis, we worked a lot with 4-H camps or visited farms across the county and performed different tests or took soil samples or identified diseases and pests that were big concerns for those smaller producers,” Richardson said. “We just helped support those producers in any way that we could, with what knowledge we had and used our resources to expand that impact.”
Gifford took on two projects for her internship, working closely with Keith Statham-Cleek and Leigh Ann Bullington, who both serve as extension family and consumer sciences educators for the Division of Agriculture. She developed a recipe for a salad using soy protein and created a family and consumer sciences resource program manual for county agents.
“I am very into creativity in the kitchen, so I came up with five recipes initially,” Gifford said. “After narrowing that down, we went through the recipe testing process and tweaked a few things, like fine-tuning the oil to apple cider vinegar ratio in the dressing.”
For the resource program manual, Gifford said she met with family and consumer sciences program specialists and “discussed the inner workings of each of their programs.”
“The goal was to make it much easier for county agents to find resources,” Gifford said.
New perspectives
Singleton said his internship taught him how much extension “impacts the local community.”
“I’ve seen how extension assists people with any problem or need they have,” Singleton said. “It’s been a lot of fun learning the ins and outs of being a county agriculture agent. It’s not monotonous, it’s something new every day that’s going to stimulate your brain.”
Gifford, who will be a senior this fall, said her experience in the Experiential Scholars Program will make a difference in her career goals.
“I don’t know where my training is going to take me, but I would love to come back and be a practicing physician here in Arkansas,” Gifford said. “I think learning about Arkansas, outside of the small part of the state where I grew up, is so important. It’s so valuable to learn about other places and the needs of the people there, and the culture there. I learned so much in this internship.”
Richardson said the county agent internship program helped improve his communication skills and showed him the breadth of extension’s reach in the state.
“What sticks with me is that the extension service is an opportunity to educate everyone,” Richardson said. “They really do target all these different audiences — from youth to seasoned agriculture producers — to make sure that they’re best prepared and well-informed, leading to a more successful agriculture industry.
“Through this experience, I’ve gained so much knowledge and a skillset that will directly transfer into the career path that I have chosen and honestly could transfer into a thousand other career paths that would be beneficial for any college student,” Richardson said.
For Rainey, her extension internship experience had special significance. Rainey is the daughter of Ron Rainey, extension professor and assistant vice president for agricultural economics and agribusiness for the Division of Agriculture.
“Growing up and watching my dad absolutely love what he does taught me that it’s possible to pick a career in a field and love what you do,” she said. “He loves what he does and shows up every day for the people he’s helping and the people he works for. He inspires me and has been a great role model my whole life.”
Visit the Summer Internship Opportunities page on the Cooperative Extension Service website to learn more about each of the internship programs.
To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. To learn more about ag and food research in Arkansas, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station at aaes.uada.edu.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 22 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three campuses.
Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.
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Media Contact:
Rebekah Hall
rkhall@uada.edu
501-671-2061