Davis honored for 30 years of service to Md. Soybean Board

By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor

In 1981, an organization destined to guide the fortunes of Mid-Atlantic soybean farmers through the balance of the 20th century and into the 21st, came into being.
It was the Maryland Soybean Board.
A year earlier, a young woman, the product of a Caroline County farm family, had been employed by the American Soybean Association to take over the secretarial duties of  its regional  office in Salisbury, the nerve center for the its affiliated Mid-Atlantic Soybean Association , Virginia Soybean Association and, in an advisory capacity, its North Carolina Soybean Association.
The young woman also was handed the enormous  responsibilities of  the new soybean board, the agency which would administer the soybean  checkoff in  Maryland.
Last Tuesday evening, two of the founding members of that long-ago soybean checkoff board were among some nearly 40 well-wishers who gathered in the Lighthouse Room of The Fisherman’s Inn at Kent Narrows on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to pay tribute to Sandra (Sandy) Davis who has served  the soybean industry in the Mid-Atlantic for a total of 30 years.
Through the years, and as the Mid-Atlantic Soybean Association  was restructured and as the soybean checkoff advanced from a state to a congressionally mandated national checkoff program, she advanced  in 1990 from secretary to administrative assistant and in 1995,  to the soybean board’s executive director.
Davis’s grasp of her job and its responsibilities and the respect in which she is held at national checkoff headquarters, the United Soybean Board in St. Louis, has resulted in her now serving, as well, as executive director of the soybean board in Pennsylvania and the so-called Northeast Region and as financial compliance coordinator for the soybean board of Delaware.
On hand to toast her at Tuesday’s evening’s dinner were Milton Malkus of Dorchester County and Leon Schmick of Caroline County, who may be the two still surviving members of the first Maryland Soybean Board.
They were joined by current and former members of both the Maryland and Delaware checkoff boards and their spouses.
The dinner was a surprise for Davis. She thought she was  merely attending  the  dinner for the checkoff board directors which traditionally marks the midway point in their two-day August meeting.
In brief remarks and close to tears, she said to the gathering: “It is so good to see you all here …you are all like family for me.”
Roger Schmick, Leon Schmick’s son who followed in his father’s footsteps and served nine years on the Maryland board, served as master of ceremonies.
In a role reversal,  Davis took the opportunity of the gathering to present Schmick with a plaque honoring his board service.
On Wednesday,  as the board continued its deliberations, this time in a conference room at the Wye Research and Extension  Center, Davis was back at work logging the deliberations of the board which she has served for three decades.