The Environmental Stewardship Award Program (ESAP), which annually recognizes outstanding stewardship practices and conservation achievements of cattle producers, honored regional winners, including:
Beef Quality Assurance Awards
The National Beef Quality Assurance (BQA) Awards, funded in part by the Beef Checkoff program and sponsored by Cargill, annually recognize outstanding beef and dairy producers, marketers and educators. Winners not only demonstrate high-quality animal care and handling principles as part of their day-to-day operations but also express a strong desire to continually improve their operations through BQA.
The 2024 honorees include Cow-Calf Award winner VanWinkle Ranch, Colorado; Dairy FARM Award recipient Dotterer Dairy, Pennsylvania; Feedyard Award winner Adams Land & Cattle, Nebraska; Educator Award recipient Dr. John Wenzel, New Mexico; and the Marketer Award presented to Power Genetics, Nebraska.
W.D. Farr Scholarships
Megan Eckhardt of New Braunfels, Texas, and Jaime Luke of Stanberry, Missouri, were each awarded a $15,000 W.D. Farr Scholarship by the National Cattlemen’s Foundation (NCF). The annual W.D. Farr Scholarship program, established by the NCF in 2007, recognizes outstanding graduate students who plan to pursue careers furthering the beef industry. Eckhardt and Luke were selected from 51 applicants based on their academic achievements, leadership and commitment to the advancement of the beef industry.
CME Group Beef Industry Scholarships
Ten students pursuing careers in the beef industry were awarded $1,500 scholarships by the National Cattlemen’s Foundation. The CME Group Beef Industry Scholarship program recognizes talented and thoughtful students emerging as industry leaders. The 2024 CME Group Beef Industry Scholarship recipients include:
Allison Fender of Santa Ysabel, California, was honored as the Advocate of the Year for the positive example she sets for other beef advocates by sharing her journey in ways that connect with people outside of her immediate beef community. This award, given annually by the NCBA’s Beef Checkoff-funded Masters of Beef Advocacy (MBA) program, recognizes an outstanding beef advocate for success in engaging consumers who want to learn more about beef and raising cattle.
Trailblazers
The Trailblazers program, funded by the Beef Checkoff, was established in 2021 to identify, train, equip and empower the next generation of advocates in the beef community. Over the course of a year-long program, 10 elite advocates develop the necessary tools to facilitate quality conversations and help safeguard the work of producers, ranchers and cattle farmers across the United States.
The 2023 Trailblazers include Tucker Brown, Texas; Colton Coffee, Montana; Sam Cossio, Washington; Allison Fender, California; Rocky Forseth, Montana; Macey Hurst, Missouri; Joe Lowe, Kentucky; Erin Perkins, New York; Paige Schmidt, Kansas; and Ally Spears, Texas. The 2024 Trailblazers cohort will be announced in mid-February.
For more information, visit www.ncba.org.