News Release

PIERCETON — Speakers for the 17th Annual Heirloom Tomato Festival, to be held Saturday, Aug. 24, will be Steve Koontz and Karen Richey. Both speakers will speak inside The Old Train Depot, located near Brower Park in downtown Pierceton, directly off of SR 13.

Steve Koontz has prepared the program, “Grow Lettuce in Your Living Room” which will be presented at 10:30 a.m. Koontz provided this synopsis of his lecture: “It won’t be long before the Indiana winter grips us and outdoor gardens are covered n snow. But growing veggies doesn’t need to stop when autumn comes. With the right light and some ingenuity, you can grow lettuce in your living room, all year round! Learn about various growing methods, both homemade and purchased systems, that work well indoors-without using soil.”

Since 2012, Koontz has enjoyed growing veggies on a soil-less gardening system called a Tower Garden. He’s enjoyed it so much that he started Keep It Watered, a business specializing in indoor gardening.

Karen Richey will present the second program of the day, “Preserve It Now…Enjoy It Later” beginning at 2:00 p.m. The program will cover canning and preserving the summer harvest.

Over the years, Richey has seized many opportunities Purdue Extension offers to enhance her leadership skills and to provide innovative programming in Marshall County and statewide. Karen was awarded the NEAFCS Distinguished Service Award in 2006 and NEAFCS Continued Excellence Award in 2016. She served as Epsilon Stigma Phi Alpha Lambda President, is a graduate of Indiana Agriculture Leadership Program, National Extension Leadership Development program and recipient of the Monhaut Zmola Fellowship and most recently named recipient of the Frederick L. Hovde Award of Excellence in Educational Service to Rural People of Indiana. She is one of 14 Mastering Home Food Preservation instructors for the Purdue Extension — the most senior, 33 years — and has a Master of Science in Foods & Nutrition.

Richey believes it’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.