Three OSU Ag Majors Awarded Commission Scholarships

Three Oregon State University agricultural majors are the 2020 Oregon Blueberry Commission scholarship recipients.

Emily Jo Henry Patt is a senior from Umpqua, Oregon, with a double major of horticulture and agricultural sciences and a minor in Spanish.

She hopes to join the Peace Corps after graduation, which is a 27 month commitment.

“After that, I am not set on anything,” she said. “I’ll probably do something in the greenhouse industry or work on another type of farm.”

Patt wasn’t raised on a farm, but spent time at her uncle’s farm while growing up and started raising sheep for 4-H when she was just ten years old. “I got involved in FFA in high school and that is when I became really interested in horticulture.”

Patt currently works in a Department of Horticulture research lab on the OSU campus.

“Luckily I was able to keep my job through COVID,” she said. “Also, I am fortunate in that I am going to be able to stay on track to graduate at the same time as I was before COVID.”

Cassidy Leatherwood, a junior, is majoring in agricultural business management with a minor in Chinese.

From Sutherlin, Oregon, Leatherwood said she hopes to work in agricultural export sales management upon graduation.

Like Pratt, Leatherwood wasn’t raised on a farm but grew up in a rural community and became interested in agriculture while participating in FFA in high school. Also, Leatherwood said that her experiences working at a Roseburg blueberry operation influenced her decision to major in agricultural business management.

“The blueberry farm I work at sends some of their fruit overseas, and I became interested in doing export sales management from that,” she said. Leatherwood, 20, has worked in the farm’s packing barn for five years now.

She moved from Corvallis back to Sutherlin last spring after classes at OSU went virtual. “It went okay,” she said of taking classes through Zoom. “I didn’t mind it too much.”

Quincey Pittman, a sophomore from Corvallis, is majoring in sustainable horticultural production. She currently is working as an assistant at the USDA-ARS Horticulture Crops Research Unit, assisting a Ph.D. student in collecting data and completing research.

Pittman said she first became interested in blueberries when as a kid she would help her family pick blueberries at a nearby farm. Her interests range from small scale production to bi-hemisphere sustainable blueberry farming.

Pittman said she is concerned with the interruption COVID-19 is having on her studies, noting that distance learning and horticulture don’t go hand-in-hand.

“Horticulture under remote learning is really difficult because it is so hands on,” she said. “I am kind of concerned for the fall going into a distance learning setting for the school year. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

“Hopefully everything will work out okay,” Pittman said.

The Oregon Blueberry Commission awards scholarships on an annual basis. Any student who is currently enrolled and attending at least their first year of college in an Oregon college or university and has at least one year remaining to complete a degree is eligible. Students enrolled in crop science, horticulture or food science receive selection preference.
Application deadline is January 31 of each year.

For more information, go to www.oregonblueberry.com/scholarship.