The College of Agricultural and Life Sciences will present Susan Crane, co-owner and manager of Crane Farms in Burlington, Wis., with the Honorary Recognition Award for her service and dedication to Wisconsin agriculture and the dairy industry. The award will be presented at a banquet Oct. 24 in the Memorial Union on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. (For information on attending the banquet, please call Lee Gottschalk at the CALS conference office, (608) 263-2421.)

Crane and her husband, Bob, manage a 170-cow dairy and 1,500 acres of grain crops. Crane Farms hosted more than 3,600 guests at the annual Kenosha county dairy breakfast in 1992. She has served as a young farmer coordinator in the Wisconsin Dairies Young Farmer Program, and was president in 1991. Through that program, Crane represented Wisconsin Dairies Cooperative at numerous dairy promotion events in southeastern Wisconsin from 1989 to 1992. Her experiences prepared her for a seat on the Wisconsin Dairies board of directors, and she is a founding director of Foremost Farms USA.

Also a part-time nurse at Burlington Clinic and mother of seven children, Crane has lectured to children, community leaders and government officials as a dairy education consultant. She has hosted farm tours and participated in community events such as the annual food fair in Chicago and farmers” markets. She has been a 4-H leader and is an interpreter and actor at Old World Wisconsin. Crane was also the featured speaker at the professional meeting of the Association of Women in Agriculture in 1996.

Devoting time to the international agricultural industry, Crane started the first 4-H club in Romania through an exchange program by Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance. She has also hosted exchange students and families from England, New Zealand, Zambia, Tonga, Australia, Germany, Russia, and Latvia.

Crane has accomplished all of this while attending night classes during the past two years and earned her bachelor”s of business administration from Cardinal Stritch College. She is currently pursuing a master”s of business administration at Marquette University.

Honorary Recognition, the highest honor bestowed by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, recognizes people who have made outstanding contributions toward the development of agriculture, protection of natural resources, and improvement of rural living. Since 1909, the college has honored more than 400 people with these awards.