2008-09 AWARDS & ENDOWMENTS
Harry S. Baker Distinguished Service Award For Cotton |
Mississippicotton producer/ginner Kenneth Hood was the recipient of the 2007 Harry S. Baker Distinguished Service Award. He was recognized at the National Cotton Council's 2008 Annual Meeting.
The Baker Award, named for the late California industry leader and NCC President Harry S. Baker, is presented annually to a deserving individual who has provided extraordinary service, leadership and dedication to the U.S. cotton industry. Hood is a partner in Perthshire Farms and involved in H.B. Hood and Sons Gins, Hood Equipment Co., and InTime Inc., an aerial imagery-based precision farming service. Hood reached well beyond his operations in compiling a resume of exceptional leadership and dedicated service to agriculture. He was NCC chairman in 2002, and is a past president of the National Cotton Ginners Association, Southern Cotton Ginners Association and the Delta Council. Others also have acknowledged Hood’s outstanding leadership qualities. In 1988, he received Cotton FarmingMagazine’s Farmer of the Year award. The New York Cotton Exchange named him the Cotton Marketer of the Year in 1992. In 1994, Kenneth received Progressive Farmer’s Man of the Year in Service to Mississippi Agriculture. He was named the National Cotton Ginner of the Year in 1997, and was recognized in 2000 as the Delta Council’s Outstanding Conservation Farmer of the Year. Hood delivered the NCC’s message to House and Senate leaders before and during the 2002 farm bill conference committee. These efforts helped achieve a substantial moderation of the objectionable payment limit provisions in the conference committee’s bill. Previous award honorees include cotton producers, Duke Barr, Bruce Brumfield, Lloyd Cline, Robert Coker, Bruce Heiden, Frank Mitchener, Jimmy Sanford, Jack Stone, and Charlie Youngker; ginner, Lon Mann; merchants, William B. Dunavant, Jr., and Bill Lawson; textile manufacturer, Duke Kimbrell; association executives, Albert Russell, Earl Sears and B.F. Smith; Congressional members, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Reps. Larry Combest and Charles Stenholm; and USDA official Charlie Cunningham. | 
Harry Baker Award winner Kenneth Hood was recognized at the NCC’s 2008 Annual Meeting. |
Oscar Johnston Lifetime Achievement Award The late Arkansas cotton ginner Lon Mann was the recipient of the 2007 Oscar Johnston Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was presented at the National Cotton Council’s 2008 Annual Meeting. The annual award, established in 1997, is named for Oscar Johnston, whose vision, genius and tireless efforts were foremost in the organization and shaping of the NCC 70 years ago. The award is presented to an individual, now deceased, who served the cotton industry, through the NCC, over a significant period of his or her active business career. Recognizing more than office or position held, the award honors someone who, like Mann, exerted a positive influence on the industry and who demonstrated character and integrity as well as perseverance and maturation during that service. Mann is the ninth individual to be honored with this award. Mr. Mann, who was a partner in McClendon, Mann & Felton Gin Company in Marianna, was involved in the ginning business his entire adult life. He was a leader in the re-vitalization of the National Cotton Ginners Association (NCGA) and was a past president of that organization as well as the Southern Cotton Ginners Association and the Arkansas Agricultural Council. He served as the NCC’s 27th president in 1978 – only the third ginner at that point to hold the top NCC post. He also was a key player in the Cotton Producers Institute, the predecessor to Cotton Incorporated and served on the Cotton Board for more than 12 years. Among the many awards Mr. Mann received during his lifetime was the NCC’s Harry S. Baker Distinguished Service Award and the NCGA’s Horace Hayden National Cotton Ginner of the Year Award. Previous Oscar Johnston Lifetime Achievement Award recipients are: James E. Echols, a former NCC chairman, Memphis, TN; William Garrard, first general manager of Greenwood, MS-based Staplcotn Cooperative; Sykes Martin, a Courtland, AL, producer; Walter Montgomery, Sr., a Spartanburg, SC, textile manufacturer; William Rhea Blake, a former NCC executive vice president; Roger Malkin, long-time chairman and CEO of Delta and Pine Land Company, Scott, MS; and former NCC presidents, George C. Cortright, Jr., a Rolling Fork, MS, producer, and Jack Hamilton, a Lake Providence, LA, producer/ginner/warehouseman.
High Cotton Awards 
“B” Lindsey, left, a Caldwell, Ark., producer representing the Mid-South, accepts the High Cotton Award from Farm Press editor Elton Robinson as Lindsey’s wife, Jenny, looks on. | For 15 years, the High Cotton Awards has honored full-time cotton producers who produce a profitable, high quality crop while meeting the best standards of environmental stewardship. The Awards recipients represent the best of the environmental ethic displayed by so many U.S. cotton producers.” The 2008 winners, who were honored at the 2008 Beltwide Cotton Conferences, were: Mike and Timmy Haddock, Trenton, N.C., representing the Southeastern states; “B” Lindsey, Caldwell, Ark., the Mid-South; Clint Abernathy, Altus, Okla., the Southwest; and “Sonny” Hatley, Scottsdale, Ariz., the Far Wes. |
Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Chair in Molecular Genetics Endowment: $1,000,000 The Coker Chair has helped Clemson University obtain general assembly appropriations for biotechnology research. The chair itself attracts not only a top-notch faculty member to fill it but additional exceptional faculty as well. The resulting momentum helps attract state investments in facilities such as the new science and technology center and the state-of-the-art greenhouse complex at Clemson.
The C. Everette Salyer Fellowship in Cotton Research Endowment: $300,000 This fellowship at Texas A & M University was inaugurated to honor the late California producer-ginner and former Cotton Foundation president, C. Everette Salyer. Doctoral and post-doctoral level students are able to study and conduct research geared to the sciences of producing and marketing cotton. It also provides funding for recipients to attend the annual Beltwide Cotton Conferences, where they are able to share their results with industry leaders.
Cottonseed Oil Clinic Endowment: $60,000 Proceeds from a Mississippi Valley Oilseed Processors Association endowment support the Annual Conference of the Oilseed Processing Clinic. The clinic is jointly sponsored with the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Southern Regional Research Center and the National Cottonseed Products Association. |
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