NACTA Yesterday

NACTA Journal, Mar 2007 by Gough, Bob

50 Years Ago

On 12 March, 1955, our Executive Committee, meeting in the Department of Agriculture at Central Missouri State College in Warrensburg, resolved that the name of our organization shall be "National Association of College Teachers of Agriculture." Dues were set at $5.00 per member per year.

Stephen F. Austin State College in Nacogdoches, Texas, hosted the 3rd Annual Conference on 28-30 March, 1957, at the hotel Fredonia. NACTA President M. Hayne Folk was escorted to the conference by the Texas Highway Rangers. The annual conferences in 1955 and 1956, both held at Central Missouri State College, had fine rooms with tables but no lecterns, so G. Carl Schowengerdt made a lectern for the 3rd annual conference along with a gavel. Called the "Texas Gavel," its mallet was 12.5 inches long and 7.5 inches in diameter and had a handle 3 feet in length. Schowengerdt presented the gavel to E.B. Knight, the first president of NACTA, who then presented it to President Folk. Long time NACTA secretary-Treasurer Murray Brown told me that the wood for the gavel was taken from a baluster or newel post at Louisiana A&M.

30 Years Ago (Volume 21, 1977)

The first number of this volume was dominated by reports on the 2nd World Food Conference held at Iowa State University in June, 1976. Various authors pointed out that agriculture has a poor image in many foreign countries, that developed countries must provide better technologies to poor countries, and there is a huge need for food production incentives. Other works in the number deal with the thenincipient problem of teaching field crops and other agricultural subjects to non-farm students.

20 Years Ago (Volume 31, 1987)

Dr. Jenkinson reported great concern about the declining student enrollments in schools of agriculture. According to figures cited by the American Association of State Colleges of Agriculture and Renewable Resources (AASCARR), enrollments in general had declined since 1984 with the greatest decline occurring in two year schools. Canadian enrollments at ag schools rose rapidly from 1972-1976 due to the higher commodity prices created by massive grain sales to the Soviet Union in 1972 and 1973 and to the rapid increase in the numbers of female students enrolled in agriculture programs. Canadian enrollments then dropped sharply from 1978 to 1984.

Professors Christiansen and Cheek published an interesting "how-to" article on making AV slides using a microcomputer and PC-Title, Pixel Visual, WordStar, and WordVision programs. It's hard to believe that was so long ago.

10 Years Ago (Volume 41, 1997)

The upcoming annual meeting, to be held at Iowa State University, was to have the theme of "Distance Delivery" and authors were instructed to prepare their papers in Word 6.0. The first "Instructions for Authors" was prepared by Editor Bob Gough and appears in the March issue. Our incoming NACTA President Wayne Banwart served then as the Central Regional Director.

Bob Gough, NACTA Historian

March 2007