Awards and Promotions - 2004

TAAA&S Hicks Awards of Excellence

(Pictured at Left: Dr. Hicks, Jenny Lynn Hicks, Marcus McLemore, Ricky Skillington, Kay Skillington, Alan Galloway)

Award Description

This award, established by the Tennessee Association of Agricultural Agents and Specialists and other endowment funds, is presented annually to up to three Agricultural Extension Service faculty who are also members of TAAA&S.

Citation

The first honoree of the award is Marcus McLemore who has been with Extension for more than three decades, serving in Hardin County. McLemore has been the county director there since 1985, with many years of distinguished service in the areas of 4H, animal science and row crop production in one of the state’s largest agricultural counties.

Mr. McLemore has been instrumental in implementing the Savannah Bull Testing program with the cattle farmers in his area. After careful research and planning, it was determined by University of Tennessee experts, including McLemore, that a Breeding Soundness Evaluation or B-S-E program could help spot fertility problems before the calving season began. The work of this project helped to prevent millions of dollars in lost income for producers of Tennessee’s largest agricultural commodity.

The second honoree of the award, Ricky Skillington, began his long career in agriculture first in the classroom as a voag teacher. He joined the University of Tennessee with the Extension Service in 1979 in Lawrence County, and was there for 15 years. In 1994, he became the leader of the Marshall County office.

Skillington plays a number of roles in Lewisburg with 4H, adult ag and particularly in livestock production. He helped start a huge Junior Goat Meat program to give 4H’ers a chance to participate in a livestock program where they could learn a lot without costing them a lot of money. He started out with about a dozen 4H’ers taking part in 2002 and last year the number had grown to nearly 100 youth from 16 different counties showing 241 animals. Skillington recently worked with donors to secure more than $100,000 dollars in donations to Marshall County 4H programs.