The 49th Annual Meeting of the Cotton Insect Research and Control Conference was called to order by Gary Herzog at 3:30 on January11, 1996. Co-chairman Herzog indicated that this has been a very successful meeting with 186 papers submitted to the conference. There were a few cancellations due to the inclement weather and by international contributors who were unable to obtain visas because of the government shutdown resulting from the budget impasse. It was indicated that in excess of 5300 attendees were registered at the conference, another record, despite the weather.