American Society of Animal Science

Western Section

MEMORANDUM

Date: December 18, 2001

To: Members Western Section American Society of Animal Science

From: Jim Oltjen, President Phone: (530) 752-5650

Western Section- ASAS FAX: (530) 752-0175

Department of Animal Science E-mail: jwoltjen@ucdavis.edu

University of California

Davis, CA 95616

Subject: 2002 Western Section Meeting Announcements and Other News

Greetings to all members of WSASAS. As the first order of business, I'd like to thank faculty, especially Dr. Pat Hatfield, staff, and students of the Animal and Range Sciences Department at Montana State University for hosting the 2001 Western Section Animal Science meetings last June in Bozeman, MT. It is hard to mention just one highlight of the meeting--there were many including the Wednesday Symposium, the Thursday evening awards barbecue and entertainment, the outstanding papers, and the Saturday tour.

The 2002 WSASAS meeting will be held at Colorado State University in Fort Collins on June 19-22, 2002. Dr. Jack Whittier and faculty from the Animal Science Department have planned an excellent program. The WSASAS symposium on industry and academic issues will be held on Wednesday June 19. Planning is underway for local agricultural tours of interest, potential stops include: the largest lamb feedlot in the U.S., a state of the art 3000 cow dairy, area cattle feedlots and equine breeding farms. Colorado State University will also highlight their new Animal Science Research and Teaching facilities at a 600-acre site just north of Fort Collins.

The 2001 WSASAS awards were presented to Peter R. Cheeke, Oregon State University (Distinguished Service), Bok F. Sowell, Montana State University (Distinguished Teacher), Dale R. ZoBell, Utah State University (Extension) and Dean E. Hawkins (Young Scientist) and were sponsored by Roche Vitamins Inc., Elanco Animal Health, Fort Dodge Animal Health, and Cargill Animal Nutrition, respectively. Colleagues are encouraged to nominate WSASAS members for one of these awards for 2002. Eligibility requirements are posted on the WSASAS web site [www.asas.org/westernsection]. Nomination packets should be sent by March 6, 2002 to:

Dr. Pat Hatfield

Animal & Range Sciences Department

Montana State University

230B Linfield Hall

PO Box 172900

Bozeman, MT 59717-2900

Also, the first annual WSASAS Applied Animal Science Awards were presented to outstanding papers submitted by D.D. Kress et al., R.L. Hathaway, et al., and W. Poland and K. Ringwall. The Applied Animal Science Award was voted in as a regular award of the Western Section at the executive committee meeting in Bozeman. The awards are selected from proceedings papers submitted for publication in the WSASAS proceedings based on the criteria of 1) Applicability to current production systems 2) Potential for economic return on investment 3) New and innovative approaches to existing production systems. The papers are evaluated and selected by a committee of industry and academic animal agriculture consultants chaired by the WSASAS Industry Representative. The sponsors of the WSASAS Applied Animal Science Award were the selection committee members. They represented 20 different feed and pharmaceutical companies involved in animal agriculture.

Committee assignments for 2001-2002 are also posted on the WSASAS web site. I appreciate the help of all you who have agreed to serve on these committees.

Registration fees for graduate students for the annual meeting will be $35.00. This will include registration costs, the graduate student luncheon and a copy of the proceedings. Retirees will pay 50% of the normal registration fee and the fee will not include the printed proceedings. Also, a proceedings paper (four page limit) is required if an abstract is submitted.

In 2003 a joint ASAS/ADSA/WSASAS meeting will be held in Phoenix, and Oregon State University will host the WSASAS meeting in 2004. If your institution has not hosted the Western Section meeting in the recent past, please consider doing this and contact me with your interests. The WSASAS Executive Committee will help your institution in the planning stages.

We look forward to an excellent meeting at Colorado State University. If you have questions or concerns about the Western Section, please do not hesitate to contact me or other members of the Executive Committee. See you in Fort Collins!