James B Beard (September 24, 1935 – May 14, 2018) was an American agronomist. Born in Piqua, Ohio to James Hart and Margaret Bashore Beard, James B Beard was raised in

Bradford, Ohio Bradford is a village in Darke and Miami counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. The population was 1,842 at the 2010 census. The Miami County portion of Bradford is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area, while the Darke County portion i ...

. He attended

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, graduating with a in Agronomy in 1957 and completed graduate education at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

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/ref> He began teaching at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

in 1961, and joined the

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

faculty in 1975. Over the course of his career, Beard was named a fellow of the Crop Science Society of America, American Society of Agronomy and the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. He retired in 1992, and left his writings to Michigan State's Turfgrass Information Center in 2003. The next year, Purdue granted Beard an honorary doctorate in agriculture. In 2009, Beard received the Veitch Memorial Medal awarded by the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nort ...

, followed by the Crop Science Society of America Presidential Award in 2014. Beard died in Bryan, Texas, on May 14, 2018, aged 82.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beard, James B 1935 births 2018 deaths American agronomists People from Piqua, Ohio People from Bradford, Ohio Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences alumni Purdue University alumni Michigan State University faculty Texas A&M University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Veitch Memorial Medal recipients People from Bryan, Texas