TCGA SPECIAL REPORT

Georgian To Lead National Cotton Ginners

The Memphis-based National Cotton Ginners’ Association (NCGA) recently elected its 2011 officers at its annual meeting in San Antonio. In addition, Van Murphy, a Quitman,Ga., ginner was named the 2010 Horace Hayden National Cotton Ginner of the Year. That award is presented annually to a ginner in recognition of: 1) able, efficient and faithful service to the ginning industry and 2) continuing of those principles exemplified and practiced by Horace Hayden, a former NCGA executive secretary.

Murphy, who attended the Abraham Baldwin Ag College in Tifton, Ga., and worked at Boston Farms Center, currently is manager of B.C.T. Gin Company, which has two gins, two peanut buying points, a warehouse and a grain facility.

Murphy served as the president and board chairman for the NCGA in 2007 and 2008, and currently serves on its Advisory Policy Council. He also serves as a National Cotton Council director and on a number of its committees. A ginner member of the NCC’s Cotton Leadership Class of 1989-90, he also served as board chairman of the Southeastern Cotton Ginners Association in 2009-10 after serving as its president in 2007 and 2008.

A cotton producer for the past 28 years, Murphy serves as a Cotton Board director. For the past 10 years, he has been a member of Chickasha of Georgia’s Executive Committee and a trustee of AgriTrust of Georgia. He is a director of Citizens National Bank of Quitman.

Also honored at the NCGA meeting was Eugene Columbus, a senior research associate in Mississippi State University’s Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, who received NCGA’s Distinguished Service Award. That honor is reserved for those individuals who have provided a career of distinguished service to the U.S. ginning industry. Columbus received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Miss. State University.