Agricultural News
National Wheat Foundation Celebrates Year of Growth Following Restructure
Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:57:07 CST
Leaders of the National Wheat Foundation met this past Saturday, March 2, 2013 at the 2013 Commodity Classic to review the last year's progress and plan the continued growth of the organization's fundraising and programming.
NWF was formally restructured at the 2012 Classic, making what has historically been known as the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) Foundation a membership organization with NAWG as the sole member and reducing the size of the board of directors to nine from 21.
Since that time, the Board of Directors has focused on getting the word out about the Foundation; fundraising to allow the Foundation to do more work; developing new programming where logical partnerships exist; and planning to address the physical state of the Foundation's chief asset, the Wheat Growers Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
To those ends, Foundation leaders launched a website- click here to jump to their site- which introduced the organization to 2013 Classic attendees through registration packet inserts, and are finalizing a grain donation program to help farmers donate with tax advantages.
"We are very pleased with what we've been able to do in the last year, and we know there's much more to do in the years to come," said Jimmie Musick, a past President of the Oklahoma Wheat Growres Association from Sentinel, Oklahoma and NWF chairman.
"We are very dedicated to making this Foundation something that serves the whole wheat industry, especially wheat farmers and their family businesses, in a wide variety of ways."
On Thursday, NWF and BASF Crop Protection announced winners of the first annual Jerry Minore Memorial Scholarship, launched to honor a longtime wheat friend and BASF employee. Four students pursuing agriculture degrees received their awards at the Commodity Classic.
Recipients of the NWF scholarship included:
John Rosman of Creston, Wash., an upcoming freshman studying agricultural communications at Oklahoma State University;
Morgan Perez of Lind, Wash., a junior studying agriculture technology and production management at Washington State University;
Joshua Duling of Mupin, Ore., a junior studying agriculture science at Eastern Oregon University; and
Garrett Reiss of El Dorado, Kan., a sophomore studying agronomy at Butler Community College.
"We were honored to be able to participate in this scholarship program to honor someone who was a true friend to wheat by doing some good for ag students," said Musick. "These students are our future, and we look forward to the good things they do as they complete their studies."
Also Thursday, Wayne Hurst, a farmer from Burley, Idaho, and a past NAWG president, was elected to serve on the Foundation Board for the coming three years. Hurst will replace Joe Anderson of Potlatch, Idaho, who recently resigned from the Board.
Phil McLain, a farmer in North Carolina and past NAWG president; Michael Pate, the vice president for research and development at Bay State Milling; and John Thaemert, a farmer from Kansas and past NAWG president were also reconfirmed as Foundation Board members for new three-year terms.
WebReadyTM Powered by WireReady® NSI
Top Agricultural News
More Headlines...
