Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture
Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

A newsletter for faculty, staff and students

March-April 2005 • Vol. 31, No. 2

Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame inducts five

The Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame inducted five new members March 4 at a banquet at the Ambassador Ballroom at Little Rock’s Embassy Suites Hotel. Those inducted are as follows.

Richard E. Bell retired in July 2004 as president and CEO of Riceland Foods, Inc., capping a 27-year career with the world’s largest miller of rice and one of the Mid-South’s largest processor of soybeans. A former assistant secretary of agriculture, International Affairs and Commodity Programs, Bell joined Riceland in 1977 as executive vice president and chief operating officer. He was elevated to president and CEO in 1981.

Sherman D. Cullum, Sr., was a county extension agent in Mississippi and Cross counties; manager of a farm supply business, and assistant manager for Lee Wilson Co. before becoming owner/operator of Cullum’s Flying Service (1974-80), and then developing Cullum Seeds, Inc. (1977-1997) into one of the leading seed distributors in the mid-south. A native of Piggott, Cullum earned a degree in agriculture in 1960 from the University of Arkansas.

William James Jernigan, Sr., (1897-1973), launched what became 4-H in Arkansas in 1912. A native of Charlotte in Independence County, Jernigan attended the University of Arkansas in 1903, left to teach school and returned to obtain a bachelor’s degree in agriculture in 1909. While at the university, he was editor of the student newspaper and a member of a three-person committee that chose the University’s alma mater.

Jernigan began rural club work in December 1912, when corn and cotton clubs for boys and tomato canning clubs for girls were the forerunners of 4-H clubs. In 1914, with the beginning of Cooperative Extension work, he began to form organizations in schools called Boys and Girls Agricultural Clubs, which later became 4-H clubs. He retired in 1945.

John Philpot is a former farm broadcaster in demand statewide as a speaker and master of ceremonies. He has hosted Arkansas Outdoors on the Arkansas Educational Television Network since its inception in 1992.

Raised in Mena, Philpot has a B.S. degree in agriculture and a master’s degree in educational media from the University of Arkansas. He was an assistant extension agent in Clark and Miller counties and a radio and television specialist in the state extension office. He was founding president of the Arkansas Association of Cooperative Extension Specialists. He was farm director at KAAY radio in Little Rock and held similar positions at KATV Channel 7 and the Arkansas Radio Network. In 1985, he launched an advertising agency and booking agency for his humor presentations.

Mary Louise Wilbern Ratcliffewas the second woman ever elected as a member of Arkansas Farm Bureau’s state board of directors, serving from 1994-2001. She also was the first woman to serve as president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.

She was named to the board of directors of the Pulaski Conservation District in 1973 and was named the AACI/ICI No-Till Farmer of the Year in 1991. She was appointed in 1994 to the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board and served on the board of LeadAR, an extension leadership development program. Raised on a dairy and cotton farm in Sweet Home, Ratcliffe assumed control of Ratcliffe Farms when her husband died in 1973.