Tregoning goes from emcee to MVP

By SEAN CLOUGHERTY
Managing Editor

CENTREVILLE, Md. — To his surprise, Doug Tregoning, recently retired Montgomery County ag agent, was handed the Dr. James R. Miller Award at the 12th annual Maryland Commodity Classic.
He was already serving as the master of ceremonies.
“Doug Tregoning,” began Chip Bowling, president of the Maryland Grain Producers Association, in his presentation of the award for service to the state’s grain industry.
Tregoning, whose 30-year Extension career ended with retirement on July 1, rose quickly, perhaps thinking he was needed to assist in giving out the award, and looked at Bowling.
“You’re it,” Bowling said, looking back, getting a combination of chuckles and applause from the crowd of more than 300 farmers and ag specialists.
Once he made it to the podium to take over as emcee, Tregoning took a moment to reflect on being chosen and having his name added to the list of previous winners.
“To think that you would think of me in the same sentence with those people is quite and honor,” he told the crowd.
Tregoning grew up on a dairy and grain farm in Montgomery County and received degrees in agribusiness and ag economics from West Virginia University.
He returned to Montgomery County as Extension agricultural agent in 1980 and became county Extension director in 1997.
Over the years, Tregoning’s major areas of work included agronomy education, farm management programs, grain marketing and equine education programs.
In 1991, Tregoning help start a grain marketing club with meetings every other week. In 2005 he led a Maryland grain marketing focus team, which, among other things, brought the University of Minnesota series “Winning the Game” to Maryland.
He also chaired a multi-state grain marketing education team representing six Mid-Atlantic states, which reached more than 1,000 farmers over a four-year span.
Ag education has been another major part of Tregoning’s career.
He created “Close Encounters with Agriculture” in 1993 to teach fourth graders in the county about food and fiber production and he estimated that about 55,000 children have participated in the program.
“To my knowledge, this is the largest outreach education effort on agricultural awareness in the country. The program has won multiple national awards and has been visited by Extension educators from multiple states where similar programs were instituted,” Tregoning wrote in a recent e-mail to The Delmarva Farmer. His efforts in managing deer population in the county have also received national attention.
Since 1993, Tregoning was part of instituting deer management programs in more than 30 county, state and federal parks in Montgomery County, the most aggressive public deer management program in the United States.
He added that the successes he has had in his career were largely due to the “overwhelming support of the Montgomery County and Maryland farm community.”
“This is the greatest group of people that one could ever work with,” he said.