LBCC’s Equine Center welcomed a colt named Poetic Justice, who was born on April 19 at 1 a.m to Koda, his mom who is an Oldenburger horse. The owners use his mom, Koda, for jumping, and the caretaker assumed that Poetic Justice will also become a jumping horse in the future.
The foal is pretty easy to manage, but he’s very “wise,” and “spicy” say those who have been around him. He likes to leave his mother and run around. He’s a fast runner and has an attitude. Quite inquisitive. He also likes to suck on his whiskers.
Poetic Justice went home to his owners on April 20. Koda and her foal are not LB horses but instead have owners who provided them for classes. Poetic Justice nurses for about 20 minutes per hour every day, weaning for about 4-6 months. He stood in about an hour after birth and it took him about three days to run properly and with speed.
But that was only the first of the new foals to be born at the Linn-Benton Equine Center this spring. One mare was due May 14 and another mare is due May 24. These two foals may be used to halter-break.
They used Koda as an example of a breeding class at the LB Horse Center, where the students study the birthing process, the milk PH levels, and they keep track of the foal after it is born. The other horses who live permanently at the LB Horse Center are used for lessons in training, breaking, and breeding. The caretaker assumed that Poetic Justice would not be easy to break, due to his spunky, independent nature.
Poetic Justice and his mom, Koda, were hanging out in the Miebach Arena when we visited. In one of the photos, you can see Poetic Justice nibbling at my denim jacket playfully. He was skittish when approached but eventually grew too curious to maintain distance. He was friendly, soft, and prone to kicking and jumping; full of energy.
His mother, Koda, was approachable, gentle, and calm. She stood and just observed the interactions until the foal ran off, which required Koda to chase after him.
The Commuter recently visited with LBCC’s former equine science faculty member Jenny Strooband, who is now dean of Advanced Manufacturing and Transportation Technology.
What’s your role at the horse center?
Well, for 25 years or so, I was the faculty in charge of the program. So I was the equine science faculty, but I left that job in January, and so currently I’m just administering the center until they hire my replacement. And so those interviews are ongoing now, but I am teaching a little bit out there. I’m teaching the breeding program right now. I’m teaching the horse breeding lab, but I am administering it and taking care of all the financial cases and that sort of thing.
How long has that program been going on?
The program started in 1986 and I was hired in 2002, when the person who started it retired. Jim Lucas started the program. He’s great.
How’s the new Ag Center building south of campus coming along?
Great, the livestock barns are almost completed. So the sheep, swine and cattle barns are almost totally done. And then we’re making really good progress on the riding arena and the show arena as well. So you can see from the road it’s the big blue building that you can see from Highway 34 and Looney Lane.
It’s coming along really well, and that’s all the first phase of the building project. The second phase of the building project includes the horse barn, so that’ll start going in, hopefully here soon. And then the third phase will add a classroom and a wet lab out there, all in the same location, which is going to be great to have us all together.
What kind of input did you or the staff have in designing the new center?
Quite a bit. We were part of the design process with the architects, and it was really just a matter of trying to get everything that we wanted to have, on site and within budget. So that was kind of a real challenge. But we met with the architects for about a year, designing and making plans and so that’s been a pretty fun process.
How was this project funded?
We’ve got a state of Oregon community college construction grant. And so how that works is that we apply for the grant. We were awarded the grant, which was $8 million and then we have to match those funds. So we went out for a bond in 2023. The bond was for the Agricultural Center, for Periwinkle Child Development Center, and the Learning Center remodel at the Benton campus. We had just had some maintenance, deferred maintenance stuff to do. So, the bond, I think it’s the entire bond, I believe, was $16 million and then $8 million of that went to match the Ag Center.
The construction started later than was planned. Why the delay and what is the timeline for the rest of the buildings to be completed?
Yeah, we were delayed, and we really struggled to communicate with architects about creating the design that was in our budget? So that took some extra time; we had to wait for the matching funds to know our budget. So the original design they gave us was significantly out of our budget, and so that did slow us down a little bit.
How is a new facility going to improve the quality of instruction for the students over the old facility?
Well, currently we don’t have any livestock facilities at all. So we do have a horse center, but we don’t have anything for beef, sheep or swine, and so that’s going to be just a huge improvement for us, because right now everything that we do with other species of livestock, we really rely on local farmers and local community members to accommodate us so we can go and use their livestock and try to have some hands-on learning.
It’s really difficult to do that and to run academic programs relying on private people’s livestock. It really limits hands-on experience that students can have. It just really limits what they can learn and what they can do. So this is going to be just a huge improvement having our own livestock that students can directly handle, directly manage, doing scientific trials, nutrition trials, learning how to vaccinate, learning how to castrate. Just doing all the things that we need to do in animal husbandry in order to be successful and livestock production from the horse side.
The current horse facility was purchased in 2002 but the facility was built in the ’60s, so it’s just a very old, small facility. It was not intended for educational use. It was just intended to be a boarding facility. It’s currently on 53rd Avenue here in southwest Albany, and the neighborhood’s really grown up around it, and so we have a lot of urban expansion and we have 35 horses on less than seven acres. It’s just really, really, really tight, so we have just outgrown it.
We’ve done our best, but the program has grown significantly in the last few decades, and that facility just is no longer adequate. So having the animals all on one site will help the students to really bond or connect with the animals. You know, there are subtle clues, whether they’re feeling good or bad, stuff like that. That kind of interaction will give them lots of hands-on learning, which is the goal. So, career technical education really thrives when students are able to participate directly in the industry.
So are you going to have a grand opening?
Yeah, I’m not totally sure when, probably in the fall.
Is there anything else that people should know?
Well, agriculture is a huge industry in Oregon, it’s the second largest employer after healthcare. So there are a lot of jobs in ag, there are a lot of great, high-paying jobs in agriculture. This expansion that the college is doing in ag is, well, we’re really excited about it. We feel it’s really the last career technical education program at LB that hasn’t had this update. So the college has updated all the other CTE labs, culinary, auto welding. All those updates have been done. So ag is really the last one.
Once we’ve completed this project, I think the college can be really, really proud of it – state-of-the art, career technical education programs. They’ve just invested a lot of time, a lot of money, and a lot of energy into improving current career technical education on this campus, and we know that CTE programs are really, really important with pathways right into employment for students and so we feel for our farmers.
We know the average age of a farmer in Linn County is almost 65 years old, so we need young people getting into the industry. It’s a great industry for people who want to be outdoors, who don’t want to be at a desk. You know those who want to work with the land. Who want to work with livestock. So we feel that it’s a great lifestyle. It’s a great way to make a living and you know, we’re just really, really grateful for the college’s support.
You certainly can say that there’s nothing like this in the Pacific Northwest. California has a facility that is very similar, but that’s a long way away. California is the largest agricultural economy in the world so, no surprise that they have pretty amazing facilities there. Yeah, good neighbors, really good neighbors to have.
