Top grad is an ag educator

“It's an unbelievable honor,” Stephanie Warner, BS '04, says of winning the 2004 Flora Roberts Award as the outstanding graduating woman at Purdue, “but it hasn't sunk in yet.”

Perhaps it's the way she learned she had become the first School of Agriculture student to win the award in 24 years, since Melissa Ashlock, BS '80.

“As a joke, they called me into the dean's office and told me I was one credit short and would not be able to graduate,” says the agricultural education major from South Whitley, Ind.

“I was just devastated to find out that I would not be able to walk across the Hall of Music stage to receive my diploma. When they saw how sad I was, they had to tell me the real reason I was called into the dean's office was that I had won the Flora Roberts. I went from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs in a matter of seconds.”

Warner was student body vice president in 2002 and president in 2003, and she was a member of the Purdue Foundation student board, Agricultural Ambassadors, Iron Key honorary, Mortar Board and Indiana FFA, to name a few.

“Academics are important,” Warner says, “but I learned that college is so much more than the classes you take.”

The award was made possible through a bequest of Flora Roberts of the Purdue class of 1887. It is based on academic achievement, leadership, character and overall contribution to the university.