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People keep coming back for a taste of the Extension Service's oven-hot bread and butter.
By MARY ANN KOSLASKY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 15, 2002
Once they were called Cooperative Extension Service Homemakers. Now they are called the Citrus County Association for Family and Community Education, FCE for short. But whatever the name, the game's still the same: educate the public, support the Extension Service, and serve up hot baked bread at the Citrus County Fair.
For years, the FCE Extension bread booth has been one of the most popular at the fair. Nightly, a line of people snakes past other exhibits as the pungent, yeasty smell of baking bread permeates the Baker-Miley Building. Dripping in butter, the fresh-from-the-oven hot bread satisfies a basic need for comfort food, the kind grandma used to make.
Volunteers measure ingredients, knead dough, bake, and sell the mini-loaves of bread during the fair. They can be eaten plain, slathered in butter and/or topped with cinnamon and sugar for a sweet treat. What a deal for only 50 cents.
For more than 25 years, the hot loaves have crossed the counter to young and old alike. Agnes Durr, 87, moved to Citrus County in 1982 from Clearwater where she had belonged to the Extension Service Homemakers. It was only natural that she would join the group here.
She remembers the little loaves already being a regular project of the local Homemakers group. And Durr was a natural at it. She came to Florida in 1952 from Columbus, Ohio, where she had worked in the bakery of the Ohio State University faculty club. She pinches the rolls with the best of them.
While this project raises funds for the Cooperative Extension Service, this booth is also a way to demonstrate the home art of bread baking while promoting the importance of grains in the diet. Money raised by this enterprise is used to enhance FCE and Extension Service educational programs and buy equipment and program supplies for the Extension Office.
In 2001 more than 6,000 loaves were produced. Some of those were sold to folks from across the state. "It's amazing," said Mary Sue Kennington, Extension Services director. "I've talked to people in line who come back year after year and they come from all over Florida. They tell me they come back "just for the bread.' "
Extension Service senior programs secretary Gloria Cuyler particularly enjoys working the counter where she gets to chat with the people. Over the years she's seen a strong repeat business there.
"I've seen the same people keep coming back for 20 years," said Cuyler. "We get so many repeat customers, (the bread) must be good."
She shared the story of the little boy "who was only 6 or 7. He could barely see over the counter."
He liked the bread so well he told her that, "I've been coming back every year since I was born."