Cotton Achievement Award honors Bill Lovelady

The late William T. “Bill” Lovelady, a long-time West Texas cotton producer and former National Cotton Council (NCC) president who effected a profound, positive influence on the U.S. cotton industry, was honored as the recipient of the 2017 Oscar Johnston Lifetime Achievement Award. Among Lovelady’s leadership activities in the NCC were his chairmanship of both the Pink Bollworm Action Committee and the Beltwide Cotton Conference Steering Committee and his service on the Committee for the Advancement of Cotton Steering Committee, the Cotton Leadership Development Committee and the New Finance Plan Steering Committee. Previous Oscar Johnston Lifetime Achievement Award recipients were Duke Kimbrell, a Gastonia, N.C. textile manufacturer; William Garrard, first general manager of Greenwood, Miss.-based Staplcotn Cooperative; Sykes Martin, a Courtland, Ala., producer; Walter Montgomery, Sr., a Spartanburg, S.C., textile manufacturer; William Rhea Blake, a former NCC executive vice president, Memphis, Tenn.; Roger Malkin, long-time chairman/CEO of Delta and Pine Land, Scott, Miss.; former NCC presidents, George C. Cortright, Jr., a Rolling Fork, Miss., producer; Jack Hamilton, a Lake Providence, La., producer/ginner/warehouseman; Lon Mann, a Marianna, Ark., ginner; Jack McDonald, a Decatur, Ill., cottonseed crusher; Jack Stone, a Stratford, Calif., producer; Charles Youngker, a Buckeye, Ariz., producer; W.L. “Billy” Carter, Jr., of Scotland Neck, N.C., who chaired the American Cotton Producers and served as NCC secretary-treasurer; former NCC chairman James E. Echols, a Memphis, Tenn., merchant; and Charlie Owen, an Arizona ginner.