Potato Growers Honor Trumansburg Student

Cassandra Proctor

Cassandra Proctor of Trumansburg, has been named the 2016 Empire State Potato Growers Association Scholarship winner and will receive a $500 scholarship per academic year for up to four consecutive years of agricultural education at a college in New York state.

Proctor graduated from Charles O. Dickerson High School in Trumansburg in June. She plans to study plant sciences at Cornell University in the fall and hopes to earn a doctoral degree in plant genetics and to research ways to improve plant yield and suitability for impoverished areas.

As a high school senior, she served as an FFA Co-Treasurer, and participated in the Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga New Visions in Life Sciences Program that allowed her to intern in the Boyce Thompson Institute plant genetics research lab at Cornell University.

Proctor was selected to attend the Global Youth Institute hosted by the World Food Prize Foundation in Iowa in 2015. This summer Cassie will travel to the Phillipines on an eight-week Borlaug Ruan International Internship at the International Rice Research Institute.

"The Empire State Potato Growers Association is pleased to recognize Cassandra Proctor for outstanding achievement and vision related to plant science and global food production needs," said Empire State Potato Growers Association Scholarship Committee Chairman Andrew Pryputniewicz.

The Empire State Potato Growers will recognize Proctor as its 2016 scholarship winner at the Ag Leadership Luncheon at Empire Farm Days on Wednesday, Aug. 10 at Rodman Lott & Son Farms in Seneca Falls.