Sikeston family farmer earns Friend of the University Award from Southeast

A longtime Southeast Missouri family farmer with a passion for higher education and the arts will receive the 2011 Friend of the University Award from the Southeast Missouri State University Foundation.

Harryette Campbell of Sikeston, Mo., will receive the foundation's highest honor during a ceremony Friday evening at the Bedell Performance Hall at Southeast's River Campus.

Southeast president Ken Dobbins will present the award, which recognizes those who support and who are closely associated with the mission, purposes, plans and programs of the university.

Campbell has given to many and varied programs at Southeast, Dobbins said.

"She has been supportive of the River Campus and of the theater and dance program because of the value she believes it brings to the region. She also has a special interest in the university museum because of her lifetime interest in anthropology," the president said in a university news release.

Campbell has supported scholarships in agriculture and liberal arts.

Last year, Campbell made a gift to the Southeast Missouri University Foundation to endow the H.B. Campbell Memorial Scholarship in memory of her father. The scholarship is to be awarded to female students majoring in agriculture at Southeast's Sikeston campus.

In 2005, Campbell made a gift to the Southeast Missouri University Foundation to endow a scholarship at Southeast Missouri State University-Sikeston for students living in Southeast Missouri and attending the Sikeston campus.

More than 30 Southeast students have benefited from scholarships given by Campbell over the years.

Campbell also is a donor to the William Shakespeare Circle, the Theatre and Dance Guild and the Department of Foreign Language and Anthropology.

Campbell was born and raised in Southeast Missouri, where she grew up on a farm near Lilbourn. She became the first member of her family to receive a college degree after graduating from the University of Missouri with a bachelor's degree in English. Campbell then returned to Southeast Missouri, established her home in Sikeston, and partnered with her brother in the cotton gin industry in Bell City, Mo. After her brother's death in 1992, Campbell decided to return to her family's farm, where she manages several thousand acres of farmland by coordinating government agricultural programs, selling crops and managing the farm's books.

The Southeast Missouri University Foundation has recognized Campbell for her generosity through the years by naming her a Heritage Club member in the President's Council, a Horizon Club member and a dean in the Copper Dome Society.

"Harryette Campbell's generosity will have a significant and lasting impact on Southeast Missouri State University," Dobbins said.

Pertinent address:

518 S. Fountain St., Cape Girardeau, MO

2401 N. Main St., Sikeston, MO