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ALUM Spotlight E.T. York Jr. '42
2006 Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient

E.T. York is one of four distinguished recipients of the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is the highest honor given by the Auburn Alumni Association. It recognizes recipients for outstanding achievements in their professional lives, personal integrity and stature, and service to the university.

Of York, 83, someone once wrote that it was a good thing he didn't pick evangelism as a career because his skill in the pulpit would have put Billy Graham out of business. But York, a native of Valley Head in northeast Alabama, was an evangelist, preaching applying university research to Southeastern farms. After serving in World War II, he returned to Auburn to earn a master's degree and later earned a Ph.D. at Cornell University. In 1959, following high-visibility jobs in North Carolina and Washington, D.C., he returned to Alabama and in 1959 became the youngest director of the Alabama Extension Service. He moved to the University of Florida as provost in 1963 and later became vice president of agriculture and chancellor of the University System of Florida before his retirement in 1980. York and his wife, Vam, also an Auburn graduate, in 1981 endowed a series of lectureships at Auburn that brings internationally known experts to campus.

At Work:
Chancellor emeritus of the State University System of Florida.

At Home:
Lives in Gainesville, Florida, with wife Vam. Two children.

At Auburn:
Originally aspired to become a vocational agriculture teacher. Majored in agricultural sciences and went on to obtain master's and doctoral degrees in soil science from Auburn and Cornell universities, respectively.

After Graduation:
Faculty and administrative positions with universities, and state and federal governments. Directed the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service at AU and served as an administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture before landing at the University of Florida as provost for agriculture and, eventually, the state university system chancellor.

Upon Retirement:
Left the Florida university system in 1980 to pursue his interests in the issues of global hunger and economic development in Third World countries. Worked in various capacities promoting global agricultural development under six U.S. presidents. Worked with 16 international agriculture research centers around the world.

Favorite Auburn Memory:
"I have millions of them. My best memory is the fact that I met my wife there. She was president of the women's student government. She's been the joy of my life for 58 years."

Lessons Learned:
"The greatest satisfaction I ever had was when my dad gave me the opportunity to plow a one-acre field with a one-horse plow. That would normally take a day to finish, and it took me three-quarters of a day. He bragged on me. The advice I received, and the advice I would give (today's students), would be to do well at whatever you undertake; be proud of doing a good job."