Senior Voice Staff 

Recognition for farm research

 

Sig Restad talks at the Mat-Su Farm Bureau annual meeting in February. Restad received the bureau's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Lifelong farm researcher Sig Restad was awarded the "Life-Time Achievement Award" by the Mat-Su Farm Bureau at its annual meeting in Palmer on February 19.

The Mat-Su Farm Bureau is organized to improve the economic well-being and expansion of agriculture in the Mat-Su Valley with a focus on enriching the quality of life for Alaskan farmers.

Sig Restad worked as an Agriculture Extension agent in Minnesota when he received the opportunity to relocate to and work in Alaska in 1958. Restad recalled that he and his wife Carol packed their belongings and two small children into a truck and headed up the Alcan Highway the same year.

Restad worked as animal husbandman and farm manager for the University of Alaska, Fairbanks from 1958 to 1962. Governor Bill Egan appointed him as director of the state Division of Agriculture in 1962, a position he held until 1968. He returned to the University of Alaska as the Agriculture and Forestry Experiment Station's executive officer and thereafter assumed the role of assistant director. He retired from that position in 1987 and returned to provide support at the University of Alaska's extension campuses in Soldotna and in Mat-Su.

Restad has also been a member of the Resource Development Council for Alaska, Alaska Rural Development Council, Alaska Association of Soil Conservation Districts, Advisory Committee for Northern Television, Alaska State Grange, Northland Pioneer Grange, Palmer Elks and Kiwanis. The Restads have six children, 15 grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

 
 

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024

Rendered 03/29/2024 02:21