Frank Jeter Loved His Job, 1955

Frank Jeter, Extension editor and director of the Division of Agricultural Information, died unexpectedly on Friday, September 16, 1955. He had appeared to be in good health, working in the office that day and completing a manuscript at home in the evening. Jeter had worked at N.C. State for 39 years.

The following is what Extension Farm-News, a monthly newsletter for employees of the Extension Service, had to say about the loss of Mr. Jeter.

Writing “Personal Mention,” which for so many years more than filled this page, was Frank Jeter’s favorite job. He wrote about the people he called by their first names, and he never ran out of material. It was truly a personal communication between the veteran editor and the friends he worked with and often saw. It wasn’t the kind of column that lives longer than the personality from which it sprang. It developed out of 40 years of traveling to distant and obscure places two and three times a week to make speeches before people what were never obscure.

It was Frank Jeter’s belief, and he stated it often, that his job wasn’t complete until the family that lived at the end of the farthest road had been reached. He was no detailer, but he found time to answer every request that came his way—whether it was from the Congressman preparing a speech or the third-grader who wanted some information on agriculture to help her write a paper. Most every mail brought both kinds of letters.

Frank Jeter grew up with the Extension Service, but he never reminisced to any great extent. He had plenty of accomplishments to look back on, but he was too full of the future to think long about the past. Of the hundreds of letters and editorials that paid tribute to him, we don’t recall one that referred to his death as “tragic.” There was nothing tragic about the way he lived his life, and his passing is easier to accept because of it. He lived decisively, and if he left any jobs undone or any opportunities unexplored, they were small ones.

Frank Jeter was a young man at 64, and he was unusually tolerant of his associates half his age. He often asked for their opinions, and he listened patiently to the unsolicited ones. Sometimes he acted on the basis of them. The most difficult thing about working for him was the freedom he granted you; with it went responsibility. He considered not job too difficult for his staff. If he had a hard and fast rule around the office, it was embodied in his stock answer to all of us who occasionally complained about the burden of an “extra” job:

“We don’t try to find out how to get out of doing extra work; we try to find ways of doing it.” Frank Jeter could get away with that advice gracefully. He lived by it.