1901-2000
Horace Strong was born in Moscow, Idaho but grew up in the Santa Ana area of Southern California. After graduating from Santa Ana High School in 1920, he attended Pomona College for two years before transferring to Oregon Agricultural College in Corvallis where he majored in agriculture, graduating in 1924. While in college he met Beryl Jarmon whose family farmed near Heppner, Oregon; they married in 1926.
The couple ran a dairy in San Jacinto, California for a short while before Horace became a cow tester for the Riverside County Farm Bureau Testing Association. He began his extension career in November of 1928 as an itinerant Assistant Farm Advisor setting up cow testing associations in Colusa, Butte, Alameda, and Sutter Counties. In May, 1929, Horace was appointed Livestock Assistant Farm Advisor in Kern County . In the early years his duties were varied and included poultry management, dairy cow testing, livestock feed production, and working with the Kern County livestock industry groups. He was involved with drying potatoes for livestock feed, molybdenum toxicity in cattle, setting up Farm Center militia during WW II, and even helped establish a range plant nursery.
In 1946 the Strongs moved to Berkeley where Horace was a livestock specialist. There were many trips to Davis to work with the Animal Husbandry Department until Reuben Albaugh was assigned to UC Davis in 1949. Then in 1954, Horace came to Davis where he maintained a high level of activity until he retired in 1966. Specialist programs emphasized cattle improvements and grading, feeding and nutrition trials, equipment, and reproduction. These were accomplished by annual campus or traveling conferences, a newsletter "Roundup of Livestock Facts", single and multi-county planning, and industry relations. Horace and Rube split the state, with Horace responsible for programs in the southern part and Rube in the north, to help limit the required travel. Because most of the feedlots were in the south, Horace became involved in the cattle feeding industry.
Horace Strong was honored in 1967 with the Pfizer Animal Extension Award at the American Society of Animal Science meetings. He was well respected by the farm advisors he served and by the industry groups he worked with.