Karen Eifert Jones of Waukomis, Oklahoma, received her bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics with a marketing and business option from OSU in 1985. After graduation, she joined Dow AgroSciences, working with farmers and ranchers and teaching proper stewardship in the use of agro-chemicals.

 

She spent several years working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency in both the national Washington, D.C., office and Kansas state office. Eifert Jones traveled to nearly every state and Puerto Rico, affording her a front-row seat to a variety of farming practices in diverse conditions.

 

When she returned to her family farm near Waukomis, she brought her knowledge and insight from years of serving farmers, analyzing finances and seeing all types of operations. With above-average crop yields the last few years, Eifert Jones and her husband, Rodney, became major gift donors for the New Frontiers campaign.

 

In addition, Eifert Jones participated in the Oklahoma Agricultural Leadership Program in 2012, received the Master Agronomist Award from the OSU Department of Plant and Soil Sciences in 2017 and was named an Oklahoma Significant Woman in Agriculture in 2017.