MANHATTAN — A Liberty native and Cherryvale High School graduate was honored by Kansas State University last week for contributions to the meat industry in the United States.

Dell Allen, a 1957 graduate of Cherryvale High School and a 1961 graduate from Kansas State Univeristy, was recognized as the 2009 Animal Sciences and Industry Distinguished Alumnus during a day-long visit to campus on Friday, Nov. 6.

Allen, who taught at K-State for more than 22 years, received the award during an afternoon session attended by many of his former K-State co-workers, as well as current faculty and students. He then talked informally about his 40 years of experience in the U.S. meat industry - which includes service to Excel (now Cargill), the American Meat Science Association, Intervet-Schering Plough and others.

“It´s been fun,” said Allen, who was born and raised in Liberty and now lives in Derby. “I have never really done anything that I haven´t had fun doing and not a lot of people can say that. I´ve had the opportunity to work with great people.”

In late October, Allen was one of 21 inducted as charter members to the Meat Industry Hall of Fame in Chicago. During that ceremony, Intervet-Schering Plough Animal Health announced that it was establishing a graduate fellowship in meat science at K-State to honor Allen´s lifelong dedication to the meat industry, and to help graduate students follow in his footsteps.

After graduating from K-State, Allen earned advanced degrees from the University of Idaho and Michigan State University. He returned to K-State in 1966 to teach and conduct research.

He received numerous university and national teaching awards, and coached two K-State meat judging teams to national championships.

While at K-State, Allen conducted a national study on the uniformity of beef carcass grading for the U.S. General Accounting Office, and served a one-year sabbatical working for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in the law and compliance department.

He was the first to use video image analysis to develop a system for using instruments to help in determining the quality and yield grades of meat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said that instrument grading is an approved substitute for trained graders.

In 1988, he joined Excel Corporation where he eventually served as vice president of technical services and food safety - overseeing 20 plants and more than 25,000 employees.

He has served on the USDA’s Meat and Poultry Advisory committee and the Beef Safety Food Safety Council.

Allen received the Scientific Achievement Award from the American Meat Institute; the E. Floyd Forbes Award from the National Meat Association; the Howard Baughman Food Safety Award from USDA; and the R.C. Pollock Award from the American Meat Science Association. Since retiring from Cargill in 2004, he has worked as a consultant and is Editor-at-Large for Meat Marketing and Technology magazine.

BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

Dell Allen credits his upbringing in Montgomery County as the reason for his long career in agriculture education.

He was born and raised in Liberty and attended school there until his third grade year. He later attended a one-room school called Hardpan (the official name was Pleasant Valley) before attending junior high school in Coffeyville.

During high school, Dell transferred to Cherryvale High School, where he was active in FFA under the guidance of agriculture teacher Clem Young.

“I was fortunate enough at Cherryvale to have had Clem Young as an ag teacher, and he definitely had an influence on me during my years at Cherryvale,” said Dell. “During my senior year at the State FFA contests in Manhattan, our team was the overall high judging team in the combined livestock, poultry, crops and dairy judging events.”

Dell said he still recalls his teammates on that state FFA team, including Don Sale, Lynn McGuire and John Miller.

As an FFA student at Cherryvale, Allen was awarded a State Farmer degree at the Kansas FFA Convention in Manhattan.

His parents, Curt and Opal Allen, were also a big influence on his development, Allen said.

“We attended the Liberty Methodist Church, where my parents were active members,” he said.

“I have been very blessed in my life to have worked with some great people without whom, I would not have accomplished much, but I still owe most of what I’ve become to two great parents and a lot of family support,” Allen said.