By Stephanie Schupska
University of Georgia
Dan L. Horton, a University of Georgia professor and Cooperative Extension entomologist, received the D.W. Brooks Faculty Award for Excellence in Extension Oct. 2 in Athens, Ga.
The award includes a framed certificate and $5,000. It’s given in honor of D.W. Brooks, founder of Gold Kist Inc. and Cotton States Mutual Insurance Companies. Brooks was an advisor on agriculture and trade issues to seven U.S. presidents.
Other D.W. Brooks honorees this year are Terence Centner in research, Peggy Bledsoe in public service extension and Adam Davis in teaching.
Horton, a fruit and ornamental entomologist, focused his career on anticipating trends to enhance services to Georgia growers.
In 1994, he and colleagues from Clemson University and the University of Tennessee put together a meeting of fruit growers, extension agents, scientists and administrators from seven Southeastern states and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The aim was to stem declines and enhance the quality of fruit programs.
From this meeting came multistate programs in weed science, pomology and entomology. Regional successes inspired the birth of the Southern Small Fruit Consortium, which now enjoys similar successes.
Peach entomology has been hard hit by regulatory decisions that created major insect problems. Horton worked to voice needs and concerns of growers and pest management scientists.
For years, Horton worked with USDA, the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and regulators to explain that plum curculio is not a blueberry pest in Georgia. He showed that pest management programs and postharvest sampling could virtually guarantee that our export-grade fruit is free from these pests.
Working with a series of USDA Agricultural Research Service and university scientists, Horton helped improve insect management options for many insects. He has also led regional testing and moving new, safer insecticides into commercial use.
After getting his bachelor’s degree in zoology and his master’s in entomology from Clemson University, Horton got his doctorate in entomology from the University of Arkansas. He began his career at UGA in 1982.
