Brown County Commissioners welcomed Courtney Levens as the new AgriLife Extension agent in Brown County during Monday morning’s meeting of the court.  Levens will be filling the vacancy, since February 1st, of the family and consumer science agent.

Levens will begin working on November 7th in Brown County.  She has been one of the two extension agents in Dawson County for the past 3 ½ years.  Prior to that, she was a teacher.  She graduated from Angelo State University and working toward another degree from Texas A&M Kingsland.  Levens was grew up in Lamesa, Texas; however, she stated that coming to Brown County will be “sort of like coming home,” as her grand-father and great-grandmother lived in Bangs, Brownwood and the Lake Brownwood area years ago.  She stated that she and her family will live in Bangs when she begins working in November.

Judge Ray West welcomed Levens to Brown County and explained that the commissioners feel the 4-H programs are an asset to the youth of the community.

“You’ll find that Brown County is very supportive of the 4-H programs.  All of us were 4-Hers as kids,” said West.  “I don’t know how many counties did what we did when the extension service took some very serious cuts about 10-15 years ago and we paid for our own agents.  We did not want the program to go away.”

Today, there are more than 325 youth who are 4-H members in Brown County, according to Brown County Extension Agent Nick Gonzales.  He stated that Brown County 4-H has a goal to surpass the number of 4-H members in neighboring Tom Green and Taylor Counties, and that they are close to meeting that goal.

Levens is pictured above (center) with her fiancée and children, along with Brown County Extension Agents Nick Gonzales and Scott Anderson, and Marty Gibbs, District 7 Extension Administrator, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.