The Ag Alumni "Drive"-Don Elkins Recounts his Ag Alumni Journey

By: Katie Smith Jackson

Being a member of the AU Agricultural Alumni Board of Directors can be a big commitment, but for Don Elkins, it was a 300-mile (one way) commitment that he has been honored to make for the last several years.

Elkins, who is dean of the College of Agriculture and Human Ecology at Tennessee Tech University (TTU) in Cookeville, Tenn., served as the Tennessee representativeon the Ag Alumni board from 2000 to 2004. Though he likes his life in Tennessee, the state of Alabama and the town of Auburn are also dear to him.

Born at home on a small creek-bottom farm about three miles from Woodville, Ala., Elkins began life in a remote locale. "There were only two cars that traveled that little road on a typical day–the mailman and some other person who was lost," he recalls. "I was so shy that when a car appeared on our little gravel pike in front of our house, I ran and hid behind the chimney."

Though their home was off the beaten trail, Elkins and his older brother, Bob, were never at a loss for something to do. They grew up chopping and picking cotton alongside the local tenant farm families and doing other chores on the Elkinses small Alabama farm.

When Elkins was 9 years old, however, his locale, and thus his life, changed after his father bought a farm in south-central Tennessee. "We thought my father had gone crazy because I don't think he had been out of Jackson and Madison counties in Alabama more than a couple of times," says Elkins. But the family humored him and made the move to a farm at Estill Springs in Franklin County, Tenn., and found their new house was a step up from their former Alabama abode–it had electricity and indoor plumbing!

However, work on the Tennessee farm was not necessarily any easier than it had been in Alabama. The Elkins boys put in many hours slopping hogs, chopping and picking cotton, gathering eggs, feeding mules and chickens, hauling loose hay and "gathering" corn, which meant hand-picking the crop.

Elkins' father was masterful when it came to getting work out of his boys. "We loved baseball and were big Boston Red Sox fans back during the days of Ted Williams and company," Elkins says. "Our dad would lay out all of the work we had to do, then tell us if we got all of this done by Saturday noon we could call a couple of friends and have a 'cow pasture league' baseball game. Did we ever work hard to free up those Saturday afternoons to play a little ball!"

Though Elkins and his brother shared a love for baseball (and both went on to play in college), they did not have mutual feelings about agriculture. "I've loved farming and agriculture, and especially seeing things grow, for as long as I can remember–well before I ever started to school. I remember when my dad first gave me a little plot of land within the family's large garden. I loved growing my own vegetables."

Bob, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with agriculture. The first to head off to college, Bob went to TTU and majored in engineering, later becoming an engineer with NASA. When Don, who had been active in 4-H and FFA, graduated from Franklin County High School in Winchester, Tenn., he followed Bob to TTU in 1958, but to study agronomy.

After earning his B.S. degree in 1962, Elkins entered graduate school at the University of Tennessee, but was not a good fit for their program.

"I decided that maybe I was not cut out for graduate study," Elkins recalls. "However, at the strong insistence of my father (who thought highly of Auburn because of articles and advice to farmers from the Extension Service that went back to his years in Alabama), I made a trip to Auburn to look into graduate study in agronomy and soils."

Though he arrived on the Auburn campus feeling discouraged and disillusioned about graduate study, Elkins discovered a whole new world among the Auburn faculty. "I found the perfect person to lift me off the mat and get me on the right track–Dr. Carl Hoveland," says Elkins. Hoveland took the young Elkins "under his wing," and restored Elkins' confidence in graduate school. "I will be eternally grateful for what he did for me. Because of him, I was able to receive my master's degree in agronomy and soils in 1964," Elkins says.

Despite his respect for Hoveland, Elkins temporarily disregarded his mentor's advice after he earned his master's. "Dr. Hoveland encouraged me on many occasions to stay on at Auburn for the Ph.D., but I was determined to NOT follow his advice," says Elkins. "It was only after I had explored the job market and discovered that teaching positions at colleges and universities (even the smaller ones) were virtually closed to candidates without the Ph. D. that I decided to test the doctoral waters."

Elkins applied for and received a NASA Fellowship that allowed him to study plant nutrition at Auburn with Leonard Ensminger, who was then the head of the CoAg Department of Agronomy and Soils. The quiet and unassuming Ensminger gave Elkins the perfect mixture of academic freedom and responsibility.

"I am grateful for the opportunity and the encouragement that he gave me," states Elkins. "If my dad had not absolutely insisted that I come to Auburn and if I had not found these wonderful, caring mentors, I doubt that I would have ever completed my graduate degrees, and it's anybody's guess what I would be doing today. Auburn was the perfect place for me, and I developed a deep affection for the loveliest village on the Plains. I owe so much to Auburn and the professors for the quality education that has enabled me to be successful in my career as a professor and administrator."

When Elkins was earning his graduate degrees, his wife, the former Earline Mizell, was getting her Ph.T. degree (Put Husband Through), working in women's housing. When Elkins completed the Ph.D. in 1967, he and his family headed north for Elkins to work as an assistant professor of plant and soil science at Southern Illinois University (SIU) at Carbondale, Ill. He was promoted to associate professor in 1971 and then to professor in 1974.

Elkins adored teaching, a fact not lost on those around him. He received numerous teaching awards, including the National Association of Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture (NACTA) Ensminger Distinguished Teaching Award in 1977 (sponsored by his former Ph.D. professor's brother, who headed Interstate Publishers) and the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) Agronomic Resident Education Award in 1981. He was also named a NACTA Fellow in 1976 and an ASA Fellow in 1987.

Elkins also co-authored the crop science textbook Crop Production, Principles and Practices, 4th edition, which was published by Macmillan in 1980, and he authored a lab manual, Crop Science Laboratory Studies, published by Iowa State University Press in 1990.

Though he loved the classroom, Elkins' administrative skills were obvious to his co-workers. He was urged by colleagues at SIU to apply for the associate dean for instruction position in the SIU College of Agriculture, a position he received in 1985.

In this new role, Elkins had to immediately tackle a major issue. SIU was experiencing a decline in agricultural enrollment, so Elkins set to work to change that trend. One of his first moves was to start an Agriculture Ambassador program. "I had picked up the idea from a friend at Texas Tech University, who had a successful program there," he says. "I served as the group's adviser for some 10 years and we trademarked the name 'Agbassadors' for our SIU Ambassador program. Thanks in part to the Agbassadors, SIU turned around the agriculture enrollment and got back on firm footing."

In 1995, Elkins was asked to apply for the deanship of the College of Agriculture and Home Economics (now Human Ecology) at Tennessee Tech. Though he resisted the call for a while, he finally got excited about the opportunity to "come home." He took early retirement from SIU, after more than 28 years there, and started at TTU on Oct. 1, 1995.

One of his first actions at TTU was to start a student ambassador program for recruiting and public relations activities. It was the first such program at TTU, but he has since helped four other TTU colleges or schools start similar programs. In March 2002 he was honored by the TTU Deans Council with an award for establishing the ambassador program on campus.

Though his schedule is busy in Tennessee, he also finds time to serve his other alma mater. "I honestly cannot remember how many years I have been a member of the Auburn Alumni Association and the Auburn Agricultural Alumni Association, but I am a long-time life member of both.

"My vision for the Ag Alumni Association is that it can be a driving force in seeing that important projects, such as Ag Heritage Park, are completed in a timely fashion," he says. "I also hope that it can get more people to buy into the importance of strong support, financial and otherwise. It is hard to conceive that any Auburn alumni who received such a quality education in such a quality environment would choose NOT to maintain a close tie with Auburn and help the University any way they can."

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