Alto “Bud” Lee Adams, Jr., is renowned for his outstanding environmental stewardship and wildlife preservation, while running a successful cattle operation at Adams Ranch in Fort Pierce, where he demonstrated that agriculture and land conservation can be successfully integrated. His environmental efforts include innovations in exotic plant pest control and wetlands management. Adams provided access to researchers to study the sandhill crane, bald eagle, osprey and caracara. Adams began breeding Brahmans and Herefords in the late 1940s, and became nationally known when the USDA recognized Braford as a new breed of cattle in 1969, which achieved his goal to develop a heat-adaptive strain that would thrive in Florida’s subtropical environment. He was Cattleman of the Year, receiving the Stewardship Award from the National Cattlemen’s Association, and the Florida Environmental Award from the Soil Conservation District.
Known as a champion of private property rights in Florida, former State Representative Bert J. Harris Jr., made the promotion of agriculture his life’s avocation. A 1943 honors graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in agriculture, Harris served as a corporal in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. A citrus grower and rancher himself, Harris owned Rainbow Caladiums and was an independent farming consultant until his election into the Legislature. Harris’ efforts with the passage of private property rights to protect landowners from excessive government resulted in the naming of the bill the “Bert J. Harris Jr. Private Property Rights Protection Act.” He also sponsored legislation to settle citrus canker cases, passed legislation to prevent the disparagement of perishable food products and worked to meet the Greenbelt Law.
The late Kenneth “Ken” F. Jorgensen was president of Zellwin Farms Company, a 5,000-acre vegetable farm in Zellwood that was purchased by the state as part of the Lake Apopka restoration program. Fresh from the U.S. Army Air Corps, Jorgensen started farming in Florida in 1944 for the Beechnut Baby Food Company. By 1946, he had purchased the farm and created Zellwin Farms. A past president of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, his civic and professional involvement included service on the Zellwood drainage and Water Control District and the Growers Container Cooperative. He won the “Grower of the Year Award” from the Packer newspaper, the University of Florida’s Honor Society of Agriculture Merit Award, and the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association’s Distinguished Service Award.
For more than six decades, Copeland “Cope” Newbern has served Florida agriculture by pursuing one goal: the betterment of Florida agriculture through quality research and education. A 1933 graduate of the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture, Newbern started working as a vocational ag teacher and high school football coach. He established the first vocational agriculture department in the Hernando County school system in 1935, and was a multi-county agricultural agent from 1935 to 1938. He has been a citrus grower and packer, a cattleman and a melon producer and, at one time, he owned and operated Fancy Fresh Farms Inc., an egg operation with annual sales of more than $5 million. He has been a member of the board of governors of the Tampa Chamber of Commerce, president of the Florida Agriculture Council, and a trustee of the Florida Agricultural Museum.
A leader in state and national poultry associations, John Powell Wallace is one of Florida’s poultry pioneers and the first chairman of the American Egg Board. He founded Wallace Hatchery Inc., in 1948 and Wallace Chicks Inc., in 1956 for the purpose of exporting chicks, hatching eggs and breeding stock to Latin America and the Caribbean. He established a significant nutrition research grants program to fund objective research about cholesterol, and established a cooperative funding plan to assist state egg promotion organizations. Wallace has served as president of the Florida Poultry Federation and the Southeastern Poultry and Egg Association and has been honored as “Workhorse of the Year” by the Southeastern Poultry and Egg Association and Man of the Year by the Florida Poultry Federation.
