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The Missouri Dairy Hall of Honors honored its 2023 winners in a special ceremony Friday, Jan. 26, 2024, said Gloria Johnson, executive secretary for the Missouri Dairy Hall of Honors.
Greg Helbig is also a recipient of the Dairy Leadership Award. A lifelong resident of southwestern Missouri, Helbig has spent his entire working career of 38 years in the dairy industry. He started with Hiland Dairy in 1985 in the quality assurance lab. He was later promoted to plant supervisor and then in 1989 became corporate quality control manager. Today, he is director of operations for all of Hiland’s 23 manufacturing facilities, overseeing plant operations, capital budget and quality and food safety issues. He is currently president of the Missouri Dairy Products Association. He has also been a longtime member of the Missouri State Milk Board and is on the board of directors of the QCS Purchasing Group. Helbig is also a past member of the Ice Cream Segment Board for the International Dairy Foods Association.
Larry Wright of Wrightvale Holsteins in Verona is the recipient of the Distinguished Dairy Cattle Breeder Award. Wrightvale milks 70 head of registered Holsteins with a BAA of 108.7 and farms 340 acres of corn silage and hay. Wright says his focus remains breeding high-type cattle, focusing on strong cow families that last generations. This allows Wrightvale to market cows, bulls and calves to local and national buyers. To date, Wrightvale has had six Grand Champions and exhibited the 2022 Supreme Champion at the Missouri State Fair. Other honors include multiple All-Missouri awards nearly every year since 1976. Wright has been a member of Holstein USA for more than 40 years and the Missouri Holstein Association for even longer. He served as the 2012 National Holstein Convention sale chairman. The farm was honored as the Missouri State Fair Farm Family in 2004. Every year, Wrightvale hosts the youth dairy judging camp and is heavily involved in the Missouri 4-H Dairy Cow Camp.
Scott Brown of Columbia is the recipient of the Meritorious Service Award. Brown is an associate extension professor in the University of Missouri Extension’s Division of Applied Social Sciences and interim director of the MU Rural and Farm Finance Policy Analysis Center. Brown has testified regularly before Congress and the Missouri legislature on agricultural policy issues, and his economic analysis has supported federal dairy policy legislation since the 1990 farm bill. He recently provided economic analysis in the 2023 federal milk market order hearing. Brown has received numerous awards, including the C. Brice Ratchford Memorial Fellowship Award, which recognizes University of Missouri faculty members demonstrating commitment and effectiveness in advancing the university’s land-grant mission, and the Distinguished American Agricultural Economics Association Policy Contribution Award, which recognizes outstanding impact on agricultural and related policy. You can hear Brown’s weekly market outlook on the Brownfield Ag News livestock market update, and he writes monthly columns for Missouri Ruralist and Hoard’s Dairymen.
The Missouri Dairy Hall of Honors Foundation was established in 1988 following the merger of the Association of Missouri Dairy Organizations with the Missouri Dairy Association. The Foundation has two goals: to maintain and perpetuate a Dairy Hall of Honors to recognize outstanding leadership in the Missouri dairy industry, including excellence of achievement among dairy cattle breeders, and to provide an archive for the preservation of records and memorabilia of the Missouri dairy industry in cooperation with the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Missouri. For more information, go to www.missouridairyhallofhonors.com.
