S. Eugene Younts, UGA vice president for public service and outreach, was the
featured speaker for the 13th Annual J.W. Fanning Lecture, held in November,
in the Georgia Center's Hugh B. Masters Hall. The first lecture since Fanning's
death last summer, the program was "A Tribute to J. W. Fanning" and
included remarks and remembrances by others closely associated with Fanning,
in addition to Younts.
The lecture is part of the annual meeting of the Agricultural Economics Association
of Georgia, an organization in which Fanning played a significant role throughout
his career.
Younts, who succeeded Fanning as UGA vice president for services (as the office was known at the time) in 1972, titled his speech "John William Fanning: The Most Widely Accepted Person in Georgia During the 20th Century."
Younts said he first met Fanning in 1969 when interviewing for a position at the Rural Development Center in Tifton.
"You knew immediately that he was extraordinary," Younts said, "and his words about the need for rural development in Georgia were convincing to say the least. From that day forward, I was to benefit enormously from a relationship that lasted more than 28 years. He was a mentor without appearing to be mentoring. He was a confidant, an advisor, and friend. Learning from him and about him was a natural, effortless process."
Younts reviewed Fanning's career, his life as a student at The University of Georgia, and his many accomplishments.
"To a great extent, modifiers do not exist in the English language to describe adequately the many ways Dr. Fanning touched the lives of Georgians from all walks of life from the corporate boardrooms of Atlanta to every town, village, hamlet, and farm throughout the state. He was an educator, visionary, teacher, researcher, economist, facilitator, a builder of individuals, mentor, counselor, agriculturalist, community developer, person of duty, pioneer, leader, a father, and the list could go on. All of us respected him, and our lives are better for having known him," Younts said.
Regarded as a "giant" of UGA's commitment to public service and outreach, Fanning and his work bettered the lives of Georgians through his 74-year relationship with UGA. He enrolled in the College of Agriculture in 1923, and from then on was associated with UGA in one capacity or another.
He served UGA's Cooperative Extension Service and helped develop the "100 Better Farms Program" for Cason Callaway in the 1940s. In the 1950s (1954-1956), Fanning served as associate director of the Division of Community Services at the just-forming Georgia Center for Continuing Education. In 1956, he became department head and division chair of agricultural economics for UGA's College of Agriculture. In 1961, he founded and served as the first director of UGA's Institute for Community and Area Development (ICAD). In 1965, Fanning became UGA's first vice president for services, the position from which he retired in 1971.
After "retirement," Fanning helped found Leadership Georgia, the first statewide leadership program in the country. To commemorate and continue his work and his ideals of leadership, UGA named its Leadership Center for him in 1985.
According to Younts, "J. W. Fanning was dedicated to the proposition that a university achieves its greatness when it uses knowledge to serve. His creed had to be contained in the following statement: 'There is something about being of service to one's fellow human beings that comes closer to what life is about than anything else I know.'"
Younts also announced that he and Dink Nesmith, president of Community Newspapers, Inc., plan to write a biography of Fanning in the near future. "The task is awesome to write the accomplishments of a person who was professionally active for all of his adult life," Younts said.
As part of the program with Younts, several associates of Fanning from UGA's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences spoke in tribute to Fanning - Joseph C. Purcell, professor emeritus of agricultural and applied economics research; Robert N. Shulstad, past head of, and professor in, the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics; Fred C. White, interim head of the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics; and Trip Strickland, a sophomore in the college. The lecture was hosted by William R. Seaton, president of the Agricultural Economics Association of Georgia.
For more information, contact the Office for the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach, 300 Old College, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-1692, 706-542-3352 or the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, 301 Conner Hall, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-7509, 706-542-2481.
Web administrator: webmaster@gactr.uga.edu All contents copyright © 1998 University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education. All rights reserved. Last revised: Wed, Jun 17, 1998, 3:27:35 PM URL: http://www.gactr.uga.edu/gcwin98/fanning.html