MEMPHIS, Tenn. — February 9, 2021 — David Blakemore, an innovative Missouri ginner who has provided outstanding service and leadership to the U.S. cotton industry, is the 2020 Horace Hayden National Cotton Ginner of the Year. He was recognized at the National Cotton Ginners Association’s (NCGA) recent 2021 virtual annual meeting.

The annual NCGA award is presented to a ginner in recognition of: 1) able, efficient and faithful service to the ginning industry and 2) continuing those principles exemplified and practiced by Horace Hayden, a former NCGA executive secretary.

President of Blakemore Cotton & Grain in Campbell, Mo., Blakemore has served as both NCGA president and chairman, chaired several of its committees, and continues to serve as a NCGA director. He has been a National Cotton Council (NCC) director, served on the NCC’s Quality Task Force and numerous other committees, and currently chairs the NCC’s Cotton Flow Committee. He also serves as director of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol, an industrywide sustainability initiative.

Blakemore served previously as a Cotton Incorporated director, as president of Cotton Producers of Missouri from 1994-1996, and as president of the Southern Cotton Ginners Association in 1999. In 2011, he was named that association’s Ginner of the Year.

A director of Ducks Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited Canada and Ducks Unlimited of Mexico – Blakemore with help from his wife, Carolyn, assisted the latter on projects to improve the quality/longevity of life to those living in rural Mexico by providing clean water. They also established scholarships for undergraduate/graduate students at Southeast Missouri State University.

The NCGA also recognized Jerry Scarborough as recipient of the NCGA’s 2020-21 Charles C. Owen Distinguished Service Award. That award honors those who have provided a career of distinguished service to the U.S. ginning industry.

A Texas native, Scarborough began working at the Petersburg Coop Gin in 1960 before eventually landing at Lummus Corporation where he worked in sales including selling, what was at the time, the largest cotton gin processing complex in the world to the American Cotton Growers in Crosbyton, Texas. That gin would be the first of two more of the “world’s largest” complexes including the Adams Gin Company in Arkansas. In 1974, he relocated to Lummus headquarters in Columbus, Ga., where he eventually was named vice president, Sales, Engineering and Marketing for all Lummus operations. His duties took him to Russia, Turkey, Israel, several countries in Africa, Ecuador, Australia, Brazil and China.

In 1994, Scarborough co-founded Cherokee Fabrication which grew from a small metal fabrication shop in Salem, Ala., into a 140,000 square foot factory, along with two satellite manufacturing and repair centers in Lubbock, Texas and Malden, Mo., – and which later included a complete line of cotton gin machinery.

Scarborough’s considerable time devoted to meeting with engineering students at Texas A&M resulted in many of them pursuing careers in the ginning sector — with some previously having received the NCGA’s Distinguished Service Award.

During its annual meeting, the NCGA re-elected as its 2021 officers:  president – Curtis Stewart, Spade, Texas; first vice president – George LaCour, Jr., Morganza, La.; second vice president – Gene Seale, Pima, Ariz.; third vice president – Richard Lindsey, Centre, Ala.; and chairman – Wes Morgan, New London, North Carolina. Harrison Ashley of Cordova, Tenn., serves as NCGA’s executive vice president.

Posted February 9, 2020

Source: National Cotton Council