Delores James retires after 37 years with Soil, Water Conservation District

When Delores Smith James joined what is now the Soil and Water Conservation District office in 1980 her title was district manager, “but basically I was a secretary who typed,” she said recently as she retired from the job she had held for more than 37 years.
The office, then known as the Soil Conservation Service, has maintained an office in Gainesville since 1972. A lot has changed since Delores, known as Dee to her friends, took the job all those years ago. And a lot has been accomplished, she said.
“Helping the landowners of Ozark County is what it’s all about,” she said.
The process often starts when area farmers “come into our office and we ask them what they’re thinking of doing, and then we help them,” Dee said. The district’s technician, Melisa Myers, often makes a visit to the farm to offer suggestions and help the producer develop a plan. She also can provide aerial and/or soil maps so the landowner can easily see what type of soil and terrain his property includes. These maps, which are free and available to everyone, are also used by hunters, real estate agents and others.
“You don’t have to be a farmer to get the maps. We have people come in and ask for a map because they’re thinking about buying a place,” Dee said. “Or maybe they’re wanting to hunt there. It could be for any reason. Melisa can print the map. She can draw a field’s boundaries and tell you how much acreage is in it, or she can pull up another map and tell you what kind of soil is there.”
The soil mapping was a multi-year project completed by soil scientists who “would drill and do core samples” all over the county, she said. “It’s a very valuable tool.”
While Melisa works on the technical aspects of supported SWCD projects, Dee’s job has evolved from mostly typing to also taking on the computer-entry work as well as payroll, accounting and tax preparation, among other things.
SWCD offices around the state are funded by the state Soils and Parks Tax, which is up for renewal every 10 years. In November 2016, it was renewed by a large majority of Missouri voters.
“The first time the tax came up for renewal, the only thing that carried it was the parks. But now Soil and Water Conservation has become well known enough for what it has accomplished that this last election it was overwhelmingly passed,” Dee said.
The state’s Soil and Water Conservation Districts are overseen by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Soil and Water Programs, which are governed by a state commission. A local board oversees the daily operations of each individual office, which offers cost-sharing for farm improvements such as grazing practices, wells and tanks, and fencing, cross-fencing and woodland fencing.
Farmers apply for cost-sharing through SWCD to complete the projects they’ve chosen for their land. “They come in in July 1 to sign up, and it’s first come, first serve until that year’s money is all committed,” Dee said. “Of course they have to qualify. This has helped a lot of people. On July 1, we’ve even had people spend the night on the porch” of the SWCD office on Main Street. “One lady for years came at 3 a.m. with a lawn chair and some covers. Two years ago, a gentlemen brought a cot and spent the night on the porch.”
In July 2016, “we had 140 applications, and they’re all on different things,” Dee said. “Last year, we spent close to $700,000 on cost-sharing programs.” Farmers make the initial expenditure, and when the project is completed and verified, they’re reimbursed a percentage of the cost, usually around 75 percent – all funded through the proceeds of the state tax.
At one time, a lot of the local office’s funds went for seeding programs, Dee said, but those projects are now less common because “when landowners have done the grazing systems we offer, they’re rotating and taking care of their pastures so they don’t have to be reseeded,” she said.
Qualifying for the grazing system cost-sharing requires the applicant to attend a three-day school, she said. But “the grazing systems are most prevalent,” she said. “If you’re moving your cattle, doing rotational grazing so they’re not eating the grass down in one field, you don’t need to redo everything so often. So many people do things the way their dad or granddad did. But sometimes there’s a better way of utilizing the resources they have, and they can make more money off their farms if they can just see it.”
She has enjoyed the work. But after more than 37 years, Dee is ready to retire.
An Ozark County native, she grew up in the Brixey-Rockbridge area. Now she’s looking forward to spending more time with her adult children and their families, Heath James and wife Jenny and their son Jasper, 9, and Katrina Amyx and her husband Tracy, and their children, Sunni, a sophomore at Missouri State University in Springfield, and Eli, a sophomore at Gainesville High School. Dee’s husband, Sonny James, died in 1995 of cancer. They were married in 1968, 11 days before Sonny left for his Army duty in Vietnam.
Dee said she thought she would be a little sad about her retirement, which began earlier this month, “but instead I’m really very happy with my decision. The hardest part about leaving was cleaning out all those years of family pictures from my office, but now I’m looking forward to having more time with my family.”
She feels good about what the SWCD office has accomplished during her years as district manager. During that time, “Missouri went from being the worst state for erosion in the whole country, and now I think we’re fourth or fifth best,” Dee said. “We would be even better except here we live on glades. It’s hard to save soil when you don’t have any to begin with!”
Seeing the changes the cost-sharing programs have made is “such a neat thing,” she said. “And the people you get to know ... it’s really great.”

Dee James