Job: Randy Fonner is an extension specialist in the
livestock manager program in the department of agricultural engineering.
Off the Job: Fonner has spent the last eight or nine years researching his family history. A history buff, he also is a member of the Champaign County Civil War Roundtable, which meets eight times a year to discuss war-related topics and examine artifacts. A UI alumnus, Fonner has a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in education with a specialty in higher education administration.
Tell me about your job.
For the last four years, I’ve been the coordinator for the certified livestock manager training program. I worked here in the department for seven years as a research coordinator before I took this position. In May 1996, Illinois passed regulations requiring livestock producers who have over 300 animal units to become certified in waste handling. They need to renew that every three years. I coordinate the morning workshop training: getting the instructors, getting the site, working with the local Extension unit, putting together the brochures and the press releases. Also, when I can’t get out of it, I’m an instructor. We do anywhere from six to eight or nine [workshops] a year. Five weeks ago, we started an Internet quiz program that is the equivalent of having gone through the morning workshop, so now some producers can get certified from home.
Waste handling has been kind of a hot topic the last couple of years on the national scene with the larger facilities, some environmental problems, new rules being enacted.
What do you need to know to do your job?
I think you have to have a pretty good understanding of agriculture and in particular what’s going on in the livestock industry. There’ve been a lot of rules and regulations that have come. So, I’m telling producers the things they need to do to be in compliance and trying to come up with educational materials that maybe can help make that easier, like the Internet quiz.
How did you start researching your family tree?
I knew that my family a couple of generations back had moved to Illinois around 1860, so I was kind of curious to find out who were these people and where did they come from. Initially, I went to the Urbana library. I’ve spent time looking at newspapers in Douglas County, Edgar County, going to the courthouse in Tuscola and the Pennsylvania Historical Society.
My wife is an avid Purdue fan, and when we’d go to away football games, my wife and son would go to the game and I’d go to the State of Michigan Library or the Ohio Historical Society.
Who do you send your family newsletter to?
I got the names and addresses of Fonners from a telephone directory on the Internet and sent out about 150. From them I got more information about other Fonner families and that kind of led to the [development of a] Web page. I’ve done a couple of newsletters, and I’m overdue to do another one, which will probably be Fonners in the Civil War. That’s been kinda neat to talk with different Fonners on the phone or through e-mail.
Why do you find geneaology so absorbing?
It’s like putting together a puzzle, except when you open up a puzzle box you have a picture to look at plus you know how many pieces you have. With geneaology, you have to find your own pieces and figure out how they fit together.
Did you find out anything surprising or that you didn’t know before about your family?
Part of the fun and part of the difficulty is there are no famous Fonners. They’ve been farmers and shopkeepers. Some were teachers. The Fonners in the Civil War were privates and sergeants. They’re just regular types of people.
My great-grandmother, whose picture is on my Web site now, had said that when she was a child on the family farm in Pennsylvania she heard the cannons at Gettysburg during the Civil War.
I never thought that there were very many Fonners in the United States. The only ones I ever knew were between the Indiana state line and Route 51, and they were all my relatives. My grandpa said, ‘We’re all related, but we don’t always talk to one another.’
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