PERSONNEL: SOYBEAN BOARD HANDS OUT SERVICE AWARD

A University of Missouri scientist has been selected by the United Soybean Board as the winner of its Meritorious Service Award for Production Research.

Grover Shannon, project leader of the soybean breeding program at MU Delta Research Center in Portageville, Mo., received the honor during the Commodity Classic, a national meeting of soybean and corn farmers in San Antonio, Texas.

In a career that spans nearly 30 years in the public and private sectors, Shannon has been involved in the development of more than 50 soybean varieties.

A graduate of Mississippi State University, he received his master's degree at Purdue University and was a small-grains breeder at the University of Maryland before he first came to the Delta Center in 1974. In 1979, he went to work for Asgrow Corp., where he established a soybean breeding station in Marion, Ark. He joined the Delta and Pine Land Company in 1989, and 10 years later returned to MU Delta Center as holder of the Haggard Endowed Soybean Chair.