By Faith Peppers
University of
Georgia
Mark Drabenstott, vice president and director of the Center for
the Study of Rural America at the Federal Reserve Bank of
Kansas City, will deliver the 2004 D.W. Brooks Lecture, Oct. 18
in Athens.
Drabenstott will speak on the topic, “The Brave New World for
Land-grant Universities.” The annual lecture will be at 11 a.m.
on the University of Georgia campus, in the Mahler Auditorium
of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.
A seasoned observer of the rural economy, Drabenstott has
gained national and international recognition for his economic
analysis and policy insights. He is a native of Markle, Ind.,
where he grew up on his family’s farm and learned agriculture,
and basketball, firsthand.
Drabenstott earned a bachelor’s degree from Earlham College and
Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees from Iowa State
University.
He joined the Federal Reserve Bank in 1981 and was named a vice
president in 1990. Throughout his career at the bank, he has
been an ardent observer of the leading issues facing the rural
economy and food and agriculture sector, publishing more than
100 articles and editing five books.
A frequent speaker before industry, university and public
policy audiences throughout the nation, he has testified before
Congress more than a dozen times on rural and agricultural
policy issues.
In October of 1998, Drabenstott was named director of the
Center for the Study of Rural America. The center serves as
the Federal Reserve’s focal point for research on rural and
agricultural issues. It publishes “The Main Street Economist,” a
monthly newsletter on rural America, and sponsors an annual
conference on rural policy issues.
Drabenstott also provides leadership to a number of national
organizations. He is currently a member of the U.S. delegation
to an OECD committee that tracks global trends in rural
issues. He is a past director of the National Bureau of
Economic Research and has also advised the World Bank.
His lecture will follow the presentation of this year’s D. W.
Brooks Awards winners at UGA. The awards are given annually to
UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences faculty
members who excel in teaching, research, extension and public
service.
The teaching award was established in 1981 to recognize
excellence in the teaching program of the CAES. In 1983, the
awards expanded to include research, extension and county
extension programs. An award for international agriculture was
added in 1988 and is given in alternate years.
The D.W. Brooks Faculty Awards for Excellence include a framed
certificate and a $5,000 cash award. The lecture and awards are
named for the late D.W. Brooks, founder and chairman emeritus
of Gold Kist, Inc.
Brooks was an advisor to seven U.S. presidents on agriculture
and trade issues. He started Cotton States Mutual Insurance
Companies in 1941 to provide farmers with insurance.
His many honors for contributions to agriculture include being
the first inductee into the UGA Agricultural Hall of Fame,
earning the Distinguished Agribusiness Award from the Georgia
Agribusiness Council and being named Progressive Farmer
magazine’s “Man of the Year in Agriculture in the South.”
The CAES sponsors the annual lecture series in his memory.
