Ross Award success started with Sonny Beck
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Sonny Beck has parlayed a
family seed operation into one of the most succesful agribusinesses
in the Midwest. Photo by Tom Campbell
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By Tom Campbell
The College of Agriculture started treating the G.A. Ross Award as its
own in 1962 when Sonny Beck became the fourth Ross Award winner and
the first from the College of Agriculture. Beck fulfilled all of the
award criteria established by the university back in 1959 and added
one of his own, the inability to say no.
"I always kept busy on campus. Whenever anybody asked me to do
something, I would. I just couldn't say no. But I never joined a campus
organization just to pad my resume or to help me win the Ross Award.
Even today, I still feel that I can always do one more thing, I just
have to be more efficient with my time," says Beck.
His goal after college was to return to the family farm and seed business
his father, Francis, and grandfather started on six acres of Indiana
farmland.
But Francis Beck feared that winning the Ross Award might sever the
generational link in the family business.
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