The NC Pork Council award recipients embody (left to proper): Ben Davis, Rising Chief; Tammy Peterson, Excellence in Innovation; Jan Archer, Lois G. Britt Service Award; Everett Johnson, Excellent Pork Producer; Dexter Edwards, Corridor of Fame; and Dr. Randy Jones DMV, W.W. Shay Award for Trade Distinction.
Dexter Edwards inducted into the NC Pork Corridor of Fame
RALEIGH (March 10, 2025) — The NC Pork Council just lately honored six distinctive leaders for his or her excellence, innovation and repair to the pork trade. The awards, introduced on the annual convention in Raleigh, included the induction of Dexter Edwards of Beulaville into the NC Pork Corridor of Fame.
“Once I consider people worthy of the Corridor of Fame, I consider those that have earned the respect of our farmers, who function trusted advisors for our farmers, and who’ve labored for years to develop, promote, and defend North Carolina’s pork trade. Dexter Edwards is the strolling embodiment of that picture,” stated Roy Lee Lindsey, CEO of the NC Pork Council. Edwards introduction into the hog enterprise got here on his sixth birthday, when his father gifted him a gilt — and the remaining, as they are saying, is historical past. He has been a pressure within the pork trade for practically 5 a long time. Edwards joined Carroll’s Meals in 1976 and later labored for Smithfield, the place he managed 420,000 sows and produced 10 million market hogs yearly. He served as a Duplin County commissioner, NC Pork Council board member, and Duplin County Farm Bureau president. Edwards was beforehand named the Excellent Pork Producer of the 12 months (1998) and acquired the W.W. Shay Award for Innovation (2019). Different honorees included:
- Excellent Pork Producer: Everett Johnson. Johnson has been elevating hogs in Surry County together with his brother since 1985, working one of many few hog farms in northwestern North Carolina. His work ethic, ardour, and robust sense of neighborhood have earned him the respect of his friends all through his profession. Johnson served on the NC Pork Council Board of Administrators for 18 years, together with as president in 2019.
Jan Archer, a longtime trade chief, praised Johnson as a “servant chief,” at all times able to roll up his sleeves and get the job accomplished. “He demonstrates his religion in every little thing he does.”
- Lois G. Britt Service Award: Jan Archer. Archer, a Wayne County hog farmer, has been a fixture within the pork trade for greater than 40 years. She raised hogs in 4 states and three nations — together with Honduras, Guatemala, and Singapore — earlier than settling in North Carolina. For greater than 15 years, Archer has advocated for hog farmers, main training and certification packages to enhance animal welfare, meals security, and environmental sustainability. She additionally served as president of the Nationwide Pork Board.
Archer could also be finest recognized for her selfless dedication to others. She was a mentor for numerous of NC farmers, at all times prepared to share her data and experience. The Lois Britt Award for Service is a becoming tribute to Archer’s unwavering dedication, mentorship, and fervour for advancing the pork trade.
- W.W. Shay Award for Trade Distinction: Dr. Randy Jones, DVM. Dr. Jones of Kinston is a veterinarian who spent greater than three a long time caring for swine. He graduated from N.C. State with a Physician of Veterinary Medication at a time when the pork trade was flourishing and spent a profession working with pork producers in japanese North Carolina. He served because the president of the American Affiliation of Swine Veterinarians in 2011.
His philosophy: each animal, regardless of how massive or small, deserves individualized care. “If prospects have 200 or 2,000 pigs, they every get the eye they want,” Dr. Jones says.
- Award for Excellence in Innovation: Tammy Peterson. Peterson is the visionary behind Hubbs Farm, an agritourism vacation spot in Duplin County that gives an attractive method to study agriculture and the pork trade.
By way of hands-on actions and immersive excursions, Peterson brings farming practices and the pork trade to life, serving to guests achieve a deeper appreciation of the place their meals comes from. She exemplifies how artistic approaches could make studying about farming informative and pleasurable, whereas selling the important function that agriculture performs in our lives.
- Rising Chief: Ben Davis. Davis grew up on a household farm and fulfilled a lifelong dream when he bought a 16-house hog farm in 2021. He transformed it right into a wean-to-finish operation and is a contract grower for Smithfield Meals. Davis additionally based Japanese Environmental Resolution, an organization devoted to eradicating and land-applying sludge from hog lagoons.
Davis has turn out to be a powerful advocate for the pork trade, taking part within the Pork Management Carolina program and touring to Washington, D.C. to fulfill with elected leaders. Off the farm, he who serves as a deacon at his church, a volunteer firefighter, and a Grasp Mason with the Masonic Lodge. Concerning the NC Pork Council Because the voice of North Carolina’s pork trade, the NC Pork Council advocates for household farmers and trade companions devoted to producing high-quality pork in a secure, sustainable, and accountable means. North Carolina’s pork trade is a nationwide chief — rating third in manufacturing — and contributes greater than $10 billion to the state’s economic system annually. By way of advocacy, training, and neighborhood engagement, the NC Pork Council promotes accountable farming practices and helps the continued success of the trade. www.ncpork.org.
