Cape man receives top extension award

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Cape Girardeau philanthropist B.W. Harrison has been honored with the highest award given by the University of Missouri Outreach and Extension Service.

Harrison is the 2001 recipient of the Gordon Warren Land-Grant Award, given annually to a person who exemplifies the land-grant mission and assists others in the community and state. The late Gov. Mel Carnahan received the award in 1998.

The 91-year-old Harrison was recognized for his support of the university's outreach and extension's land-grant mission through the Missouri 4-H Foundation, to which he contributed, and for his support of the C. Brice Ratchford Memorial Fellowship. It provides a fellowship to a UM faculty member in extension, international education or agricultural education.

Harrison is a former Missouri 4-H Foundation trustee. He had a long career with the extension service in Southeast Missouri before retiring in 1973.

As district director for Southeast Missouri, Harrison piloted the specialist system the extension service now uses.

"It's probably the most outstanding system in the United States," said Gerald Bryan, agronomist and county program director for the extension service in Jackson, Mo. "It gives a higher level of expertise and knowledge to the people in the counties."

Harrison also helped set up the service's Delta Research Center in Portageville, Mo. He made contributions in his name and the name of his late wife, Hazel, that sponsor a meeting room at the extension service's new building in Jackson.

"He has done many things for extension and education in general," Bryan said. "There are things we don't even know about that he was not recognized for."

Harrison was not available for comment.

He received the award at the Missouri Outreach and Extension's annual conference last month in Columbia. At the same conference, the Cape Girardeau County office's Mary Gosche received the Farm Bureau Outstanding Home Economist Award, and Maryann Garvey received the Outstanding Junior Secretarial Award.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182