The Alumni Association of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University will honor five alumni, a faculty member and a staff member at the association's annual alumni awards banquet Friday, Sept. 24.

The event will be held on campus at the Trillium Dining Room, Kennedy Hall, at 6 p.m. Individuals may register for the banquet by contacting the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Alumni Office at 276 Roberts Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 14853, by Sept. 15. For information, call (607) 255-7651.

The Alumni Association is celebrating the 23rd anniversary of the Outstanding Alumni Awards. Ninety-eight of the college's 46,000 alumni have been honored with this award.

This year's honored alumni are:

James A. Colby, class of 1950, of Spencerport, N.Y., retired as president and board chairman of Homestead Farms Inc., a 1000-acre vegetable and dairy farm. Colby has held several major agricultural, governmental, financial and community organization roles throughout his career. He has been chairman and director of the Springfield Bank for Agriculture Cooperatives, director of CoBank (National Bank for Cooperatives), director and past president of the New York State Agricultural Society and the Empire State Potato Club, and chairman of Agway's New York State Bean Advisory Committee. Colby has served as a director of the Empire State Food and Agriculture Leadership Institute (LEAD NY). Recently he became a member of Alpha Zeta, a national agricultural honor fraternity at Cornell. Colby also has been active in his local school, church, library and as a Monroe County legislator.

Willard DeGolyer, class of 1969, of Castile, N.Y., is president of Table Rock Farm Inc., a 940-cow and 1,100-acre operation. DeGolyer, his family and his employees have grown Table Rock Farms Inc. into one of the most successful dairy farms in New York state.

DeGolyer is a past president of the Letchworth Central School Board of Education. He serves on the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Advisory Council, Cornell's Animal Science Advisory Committee, the board of LEAD NY and the advisory board to the Federal Reserve Bank. He has received the New York State Environmental Stewardship Award and been named the New York Department of Labor Outstanding Farm Employer and the Wyoming County Conservation Farm of the Year, and he received an honorable mention for Northeast Region Quality Milk Award.

Robert D. Ladd, class of 1943, of Poolesville, Md., currently president of Haverhill International Ltd., is an accomplished professional, active in business development and technology transfer to the military and international markets. In his career, he has founded four technology companies, and he had been an executive secretary to Vice President Richard Nixon in the Eisenhower administration.

As an alumnus, he has served three terms on the Cornell Council and twice as president of the Washington Cornell Club. Ladd is one of five founders of the Cornell College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Development Committee, on which he served for 20 years. He was responsible for the largest gift to CALS at that time, the $1.3 million Madrey Farm.

Glenn O. MacMillen, class of 1954, of Pulaski, N.Y., has been active in agriculture and education since his graduation from Cornell in 1954 and worked as a 4-H agent in Broome, Fulton, Oswego, Wayne and Chemung counties. In Chemung, he was a 4-H agent and county coordinator for 18 years. He has been recognized for his innovative programs, such as Today's Outdoors Develops America's Youth (TODAY), Old MacDonald's Farm and Hire-a-Teen. Later he became the executive director of the New York State 4-H Foundation and then became assistant to the dean for the agriculture college. During MacMillen's leadership at Cornell, annual gifts to the college increased tenfold.

MacMillen's volunteer activities have been significant. They include: the Northern Oswego County Ambulance (NOCA), American Red Cross National Disaster Team, Park United Methodist Church, Kiwanis Club, Horseheads, N.Y., school district community advisory committee chairman, senior citizen caregiver and work with numerous other service and philanthropic organizations. He has won the National Agricultural Alumni and Development Association's Distinguished Service Award and the National Association of Extension 4-H Agents Distinguished Service Award.

John A. Noble, class of 1976, of Perry, N.Y., president of Noblehurst Farms Inc. and general manager of Southview Farms, has been heavily involved in agriculture. Noble has served on the local and national boards for the Dairy Herd Improvement Association. He is past president and director of the New York State Agricultural Society and a board member of LEAD NY and the Northeast Dairy Producers Association. Noble served in Lithuania and Slovakia to assist farmers in as a Volunteers for Overseas Cooperative Assistance (VOCA) participant. For all his efforts in the agriculture sector, he received the Victor Joachim Distinguished Leadership Award from the National Dairy Herd Improvement Cooperative. He is a member of the CALS advisory council.

The outstanding faculty and staff award recipients are:

Harold Hintz, joined the Cornell faculty in 1967 as an assistant professor four years after graduating from Cornell with his Ph.D. degree. He served as the chair of the Department of Animal Science from 1991 to 1997. He is best know for his extremely popular courses "Puppy Chow" (Nutrition of Companion Animals) and "Monkey Chow" (Nutrition of Exotic Animals). His excellence in teaching has earned him the Amoco Faculty Award and the prestigious CALS Edgerton Career Teaching Award. In addition, he was popular as a student and club adviser, and was recognized as the first recipient of the Donald C. Burgett Distinguished Adviser Award. He also has conducted research on cat, dog and zoo animal nutrition. He has published 185 peer reviewed journal articles, 570 articles in nonrefereed journals, authored or co-authored four books and has written 35 chapters in books.

John C. Sterling , who received a bachelor of science degree from Cornell in 1959, served Cornell as a 4-H agent in Nassau and then in Tompkins County, where he developed a "middle management" type of volunteer system to extend program delivery more effectively. In 1966, along with study for his M.A. at Washington University, he received one of four National Government Study Fellowships. He became the first executive for the New York State 4-H Foundation in 1966 and later served as a state 4-H program leader. In 1981, he became department head for the cooperative extension service at the University of Massachusetts, directed the 4-H program for 83,000 young people, and he chaired the governor's first committee on Agriculture in the Classroom. He returned to Cornell in 1985 as director of alumni affairs, then director for alumni affairs and development, in CALS. With his encouragement and guidance, the ALS Alumni Association membership rose from 1,900 to an all-time high of 6,300. Sterling's honors include the first Professional Achievement Award from the National Agricultural Alumni and Development Association and the National Distinguished Service Award in 4-H.