Hello CALS, and Happy Monday –
Last week, we welcomed our new chair for the Department of Agronomy, Glen Richie, coming to us from Texas Tech University, where he held a similar position. We also welcomed a new director for the Seed Science Center, Scott Heuchelin, coming to us from Corteva, where, most recently, he was the global lead for seed health. We are so pleased to have them on board!
Check out this editorial in Sunday’s paper by CALS faculty Mike Castellano (Agronomy) and Matt Helmers (ABE) about agriculture and water quality in Iowa. The article is excellent. This relates to the science and technology work and outlook of our college on topics related to land use and water quality. CALS has terrific ongoing efforts that lend the expertise of our faculty and staff to this important area of work, such as the Iowa Nitrogen Initiative and N-FACT (Mike Castellano, Sotirios Archontoulis, Melissa Miller and others), Iowa Nutrient Research Center (Matt Helmers, Kay Stefanik, Malcolm Robertson and others), Nitrogen Use Efficiency Workshop (Richard Roth and others), and much more by many of your colleagues in research and extension in Agronomy, ABE, NREM, EEOB, Economics and Horticulture.
Be sure to check out the story and the picture below of Mr. Ralph Alshouse (’48 dairy science)!
My best for a great week - Dan
Scenes from CALS
Last Friday afternoon, a group of us had the most wonderful time visiting Mr. Ralph Alshouse, 101 years young, who is not only a 1948 alum of our dairy science program, but also a WWII Naval Aviator, former farmer, farm appraiser, town mayor, active citizen, father/grandfather/great-grandfather and more! He was raised near Oelwin and resides now at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown, and lived in a variety of places around Iowa over his many years with his wife and eight children. We “discovered” him via an article Whitney Baxter saw in the Iowa Capital Dispatch. Those visiting last week, to award him the CALS Dean’s Award for Sustained Excellence (certificate and college medallion), were Jason Ross, Ray Klein, Nick Van Berkum and myself. The visit was organized by Alison Parker with Mr. Alshouse’s social worker and family.
He was thrilled to see us and honored to receive the award. He regaled us with stories of current and former times, joked with us, quizzed us and made us all smile over and over again. A truly remarkable member of our college family! We look forward to having him with us in person at our faculty and staff awards event in the spring. The Dean’s Award for Sustained Excellence is given to any former CALS student or employee who lives to be 100! Mr. Alshouse is the 5th awardee since 2019.
