Roy Wallace Scholarships

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Angie Stump Denton, Beef Improvement Federation Communication Coordinator, angiedenton@ksu.edu or 785-562-6197

June 3, 2017

 

Aherin Brothers Win BIF’s Roy Wallace Scholarship

MANHATTAN, Kan. — The Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) presented Roy A. Wallace Memorial Scholarships to Dustin and Tanner Aherin from Phillipsburg, Kansas, June 2 during the group’s annual meeting and symposium in Athens, Georgia. These scholarships were established to encourage young men and women interested in beef improvement to pursue those interests as Wallace did, with dedication and passion.

The graduate student award was presented to Dustin Aherin. He completed his master’s degree at Kansas State University (K-State) in May and is now starting his doctorate at K-State through the Beef Cattle Institute. His thesis project focused on the economic risk analysis of Bos taurus embryo transfer (ET) programs through stochastic simulation.

While at K-State Dustin was on the livestock judging and meat animal evaluation teams and served as an assistant livestock judging team coach. He has interned at several feedyards, and while working on his master’s degree worked full time for a year as feedyard representative for Elanco Animal Health. During the summer of 2014, he worked as an intern for Stevenson Sputnik of Voronezh, Russia, and was a member of a team of Americans, Russians and Brazilians who generated and transferred 3,000 sexed-heifer, in vitro-produced embryos and artificially inseminated 1,700 cows.

Dustin and his brother, Tanner, own a herd of Gelbvieh/Balancer cattle and were active in the American Gelbvieh Junior Association.

Tanner is this year’s undergraduate winner. He also attends K-State and graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics and a minor in animal sciences and industry. He will begin his graduate program this fall at K-State.

After two summer internships with Innovative Livestock Services Inc. with feedlots in south-central Nebraska and central Kansas this summer, he is interning with CattleFax.

The Roy A. Wallace Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) Memorial Fund was established by Select Sires to honor the life and career of Roy Wallace. Wallace, who worked for Select Sires for 40 years, served as vice president of beef programs and devoted his life to the improvement of beef cattle. He became involved with BIF in its infancy and was the only person to attend the first 40 BIF conventions. He loved what BIF stands for — bringing together purebred and commercial cattle breeders, academia and breed associations, all committed to improving beef cattle.

Wallace was honored with both the BIF Pioneer Award and BIF Continuing Service Award, and he co-authored the BIF 25-year history, Ideas into Action. Two $1,250 scholarships are awarded each year, one to an undergraduate and the other to a graduate student. Criteria for selection include a demonstrated commitment and service to the beef cattle industry and a passion for the areas of beef breeding, genetics and reproduction, academic performance and personal character.

More than 350 beef producers, academia and industry representatives were in attendance at BIF’s 49th annual convention. The organization’s mission is to help improve the industry by promoting greater acceptance of beef cattle performance evaluation.

For more information about this year’s symposium, including additional award winners and coverage of meeting and tours, visit BIFconference.com. For more information about BIF, visit Beefimprovement.org.

The Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) is an organization dedicated to coordinating all segments of the beef industry — from researchers and producers to retailers — in an effort to improve the efficiency, profitability and sustainability of beef production. The organization was initiated almost 70 years ago to encourage the use of objective measurements to evaluate beef cattle. Continuing the tradition, BIF is now the clearinghouse for developing standardized programs and methodologies for recording of performance data for all traits, from birth weights to carcass traits. Its three-leaf-clover logo symbolizes the link between industry, extension and research.

Cutline:
Dustin and Travis Aherin, Phillipsburg, Kan., were presented Roy A. Wallace Memorial Scholarships June 2 during the Beef Improvement Federation annual meeting and symposium in Athens, Georgia. Pictured are (from left) Marty Ropp, Normal, Ill., 2016-2017 BIF president; Tanner Aherin; Dustin Aherin; and Brian House and Norm Vincel, both of Select Sires Inc.