College Awards $460,000 in Prizes
The Nova Scotia Agriculture College is handing out $460,000 in academic prizes at its annual Autumn Assembly. Close to 300 scholarships and prizes for outstanding academic performance will be awarded to 225 students during tonight's ceremony in Truro.
Another highlight of the program will be the awarding, for the first time, of the Canadian Association of Agri-Retailers Scholarship, the Canard Conservation Undergraduate Scholarship, the Dr. Chesley E. Smith Memorial Graduate Scholarship and the Robert P. Longley Graduate Scholarship.
The college is also naming two honourary associates in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement of agriculture.
David Coburn of Keswick Ridge, N.B., and R. Elmer MacDonald of Augustine Cove, P.E.I., have both been extensively involved in agricultural organizations at the provincial and national levels providing leadership on various environmental issues related to agriculture.
The Autumn Assembly program is open to the public and will be held in the college's Alumni Theatre beginning at 7:30 p.m.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Following are the biographies of David Coburn and R. Elmer MacDonald.
David Coburn:
After graduating from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in 1981, Mr. Coburn became farm manager of W.B Coburn and Sons, a sixth-generation family farm specializing in poultry and horticulture. He and his wife were awarded the Outstanding Young Farmers Award for Atlantic Canada in 1995, were first runners-up in the Environment Canada's Canadian Healthy Environment Award in 1996 and received the Louis Hebert Agricultural Leadership Award from the New Brunswick Institute of Agrologists in 1998.
Mr. Coburn has served the industry in a number of capacities including president of the New Brunswick Federation of Agriculture, chairman of the Federal-Provincial Agricultural Advisory Committee on the Environment, director of the BioAtlantech Biotechnology Centre of Excellence, New Brunswick's representative on the National Agriculture and Environment Committee and as a member of the National Farm Products Council.
R. Elmer MacDonald:
Mr. MacDonald, together with his brother and their sons, operates MacDonald Brothers Farms, a mixed-farming operation with 160 hectares of seed and table potatoes and beef cattle.
Since leaving Prince of Wales College in 1961, he has been involved in the agri-food industry in a number of capacities including commissioner on the Royal Commission on the Land, chairman of the Provincial Task Force on Agriculture and chairman of the Round Table on Resource Land Use and Stewardship.
Mr. MacDonald also served as chairman of the PEI Potato Marketing Board, president of the Canadian Horticultural Council and president of the Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions. He has received the PEI Institute of Agrolgists Recognition Award, Farmer-Forester of the Year Award, PEI Environmental Award, the Gordon H. Awde Humanitarian Award and a Paul Harris Fellowship from Rotary International. He was inducted into the Atlantic Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1996.