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

May-June 2005 • Vol. 31, No. 3

Recent Gifts Benefit Students and Stakeholders

New scholarships and a doctoral fellowship, classroom and teaching lab renovations and a fund for updating teaching technology are included in new Campaign for the Twenty-First Century donations.

Simmons Foods, Inc., based in Siloam Springs, provided $125,000, which will be matched by $120,000 from the Matching Gift Program to create a $240,000 endowment for M.H. “Bill” Simmons Honors College Academy Scholarships in Poultry Science and Agricultural Business. The remaining $5,000 will go to the Poultry Science Department.

Mark Simmons, chairman, is a second-generation owner of Simmons Foods, which was founded in 1949 by his father, M.H. “Bill” Simmons. Mark and his wife, Diane, have two children, Todd, who is president of the company, and Sarah Simmons Goldstein, who lives in New York. Simmons Foods, one of the nation’s largest privately held broiler processing companies, produces and distributes fresh and frozen poultry products and ingredients for livestock feed and pet food.

Donald “Buddy” Wray and his wife, Linda, have pledged $125,000 for renovation of the Foods Teaching Laboratory in Human Environmental Sciences. Mr. Wray, a 1959 graduate of the College, retired in 2000 as Tyson Foods president and COO. The new Donald “Buddy” Wray Endowed Chair in Food Safety was named for him in 2004 in recognition of a major gift from Tyson Foods for the chair endowment.

Barrett and Peggy Duff of Pasadena, Calif., are providing a $100,000 charitable remainder trust to endow a doctoral fellowship for the Bumpers College graduate program. The gift will be matched with $100,000 from the Matching Gift Program. Mr. and Mrs. Duff own a farm in Arkansas. He has had a lifelong interest in farming and improving the lot of family farmers in Arkansas. Mr. Duff, a 1949 graduate of the UA in Chemical Engineering, spent most of his career managing large international energy and petrochemical projects.

H.L. Hembree is providing a $100,000 endowment for technology upkeep in the H.L. Hembree Agricultural, Food and Life Science Auditorium, which was renovated in 2004 using a gift of $350,000 from H.L. and Janelle Hembree. Hembree is a former chairman of the UA System’s board of trustees. He owns Sugar Hill Farms, Inc., at Fort Smith and Ozark; is former chairman and CEO of Arkansas Best Corporation and a recent director of Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co.

The J.W. Nutt Company, North Little Rock, has pledged $40,000 for renovation of a Home Economics Building classroom, which will be named the J.W. Nutt Company Honors Classroom. A matching amount of $40,000 will be provided from the Honors College. The company is the nation’s leading cash grain and soybean meal brokerage firm, founded in 1948 by J.W. (Jack) Nutt, father of Chairman John Nutt, and grandfather of President and CEO David Nutt (BSA 1979) and Vice-President Kevin Nutt. The company provides brokerage services to the grain merchandising, processing, transportation and feeding industries.