Essays on the College of Agriculture's History

1907 to 2000 EXTENSION, DAIRY INDUSTRY and FOOD SCIENCE

By William LaGrange, Professor Emeritus, Food Science and Human Nutrition

Editor’s note: William LaGrange served Iowa State University for 38 years as a faculty member of the dairy industry department (dairy and food science) and Iowa State extension service. LaGrange shares some of his experiences in the dairy industry department and some information about his father and the animal husbandry department.

After three years as extension dairy technologist at the University of Kentucky, I joined the faculty in the dairy industry department at Iowa State University in 1962. I was 31 and the youngest faculty member.
I was designated an extension dairy technologist which meant my job was to work with the Iowa’s dairy foods processing industry along with the other two department extension workers, Earl Wright and Art Rudnick. Earl had been on the staff since 1953 and Art Rudnick, who was one of the first department extension workers, starting in 1913 after he graduated from the dairy industry department in 1910. Art died in 1972 after nearly 60 years of service to Iowa’s dairy industry.
Verner Nielsen also played a role in dairy industry extension until he became department head in 1958. He returned to teaching and extension in 1974 and died in 1980. George Reinbold joined the extension staff in 1959 after working for Kraft Foods for a number of years. He changed to teaching and research in 1960 within the dairy industry department.
In 1880, a three-semester course in dairy technology was offered at Iowa State. A dairy industry building was built in 1892 and a year later a one-year dairy plant operator’s course was established. In 1897, a four-year curriculum in dairy industry was available to students. The ISU Extension Service was established in 1906 with dairy industry extension beginning in 1907. In 1929, the current Dairy Industry Building (Food Science) was built.
During the 1960s, milk quality improvement on the farm, the merging of many Iowa cooperative creameries and privately owned dairy plants, short courses for dairy plant and regulatory lab personnel, bulk milk drivers training and an area meeting with dairy plant field representatives and dairy regulatory officials were topics and activities throughout Iowa. Also workshops on dairy plant waste reduction and treatment, dairy foods quality improvement and dairy foods grading techniques also were held throughout the state.
Earl Wright retired in 1973, so I was the only department faculty member with an extension appointment. By this time the department name had been changed to dairy and food industry requiring my work to also include nondairy food processing. Also during the 1970s, my extension activities expanded to include food safety workshops for food plant employees as well as for food service personnel. Food allergy, which had become an important concern to food processors, was the subject of in-plant workshops I conducted.
In 1981, Tom Aspelund joined me in departmental extension programs. Tom emphasized the chemical aspects of food processing while I worked more in the microbiological end of food processing including fermented foods and the quality and safety evaluation of foods. Tom joined Hach Chemical Co. in 1986 leaving me as the only extension worker to cover all aspects of food processing and packaging in Iowa. By this time the department had changed names once again to food technology and in the 1990s to food science and human nutrition.
When I retired from ISU in September 2000 as an extension food scientist, my extension position was not filled, faculty with teaching and/or research appointments in the department were expected to help in extension outreach.

Animal Husbandry and Iowa State College

My father, W.F. LaGrange, was a professor in animal husbandry at Iowa State from 1921 until he retired in 1965. I was born and raised in Ames under the shadow of animal husbandry and Iowa State College and my early childhood free time was spent roaming the livestock barns on the ISU campus. I knew well the shepherds Dewey Jonze and Al Dixon as Dad was responsible for the sheep program. Also George Edwards, cattle herdsman, and Albert Wilkens, horse herdsman, were well know to me as I roamed their barns. Their sons were in Ames schools with me.
Also I knew well professors in my Father’s department as I regularly visited Curtiss Hall on Saturday mornings when my Father went to the office. Those included Dean H.H. Kildee and professors Art Anderson, P.S. Shearer, Jim Kiser, A.B. Caine, G.B. McDonald and others. These men would help judge the various county, regional and Iowa State fairs and frequently I would go along for the ride when school was not in session during the summer. In junior high school some of my schoolmates and I would help with the livestock judging clinics offered by the animal husbandry faculty to tune up county extension worker’s for judging county livestock fairs.