Knox Ag Director to speak at Kiwanis Club

On Tuesday, June 23, the Newport Kiwanis Club's program focuses on agriculture and horticulture with a local expert to speak during the noon meeting at the Mountain Crest Inn.

Neal Denton is director and extension agent with The University of Tennessee Extension in Knox County. He is responsible for agriculture and horticultural programming and education as well as administrative and personnel management in the Knox County Office.

With greater rainfall come more diseases and pests, and Denton will talk about these, as well as an update on the status of Tenn. agriculture.

Currently, he does three horticultural spots weekly; two on Live at Five and one on the Morning Show for WBIR Channel 10, the NBC affiliate in Knoxville. Also, Denton is doing four 30-minute shows a year called Out in the Yard, which takes a landscape that needs some help and works to improve it throughout the year.

He was born and raised in Cocke County, where his family farmed in the Bybee community. He attended Centerview Elementary School and Cocke County High School, earned a Bachelor of Arts in Biology/Secondary Education from Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, a Masters of Science in Plant and Soil Science from The University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and completed some post-graduate work in Agronomy at The University of Kentucky in Lexington before starting with The University of Tennessee Extension.

He is married to Angie and they have a son, Graham, and reside in Lenoir City. He spends a lot of time at the home farm in Bybee with stepmother, Frankie. His father, Harry Denton, is deceased.