2009
2009 Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame Inductees

Dr. James Griffiths
Dr. James Griffiths had a long and varied career in the Florida citrus industry. He was a researcher, grower, industry representative, and strong supporter of agricultural causes. For 60 years he could be found at almost every citrus meeting in the state, advocating for his fellow growers. He was never afraid to question the decisions made by regulators or to fight restrictions he felt had little scientific merit.
Griffiths was born in Alta Loma, Texas, in 1914. He earned a doctorate in entomology in 1941 from Iowa State University. After serving in the Army during World War II, he began his career in the Florida citrus industry, and over the years he held a wide variety of positions.
He was one of the original post-World War II staff scientists at the Lake Alfred Citrus Experiment Station. In his five years there he authored or co-authored 75 articles published in citrus and scientific publications. He wrote on such topics as purple mite and grasshopper in citrus groves; new insecticides and their application; and copper, zinc, and manganese application to soil as a substitute for spray programs. He created a standard fertilizer recommendation for young and maturing groves. Following the 1957-58 freezes, he conducted research concerning the use of wind machines for cold protection. He helped phase out the use of wood and open oil pots when cold weather threatened the groves.
After leaving Lake Alfred, he became a district manager at Lyons Fertilizer Company and general manager at Eloise Groves and Cypress Gardens Citrus Products. From 1968 to 1981 he directed special projects at Florida Citrus Mutual.
But despite the many hats he wore, Griffiths was first and foremost a farmer. He began buying citrus groves in the 1950s and was always directly involved in their care and management. Just days before he died he was in the grove changing sprinkler heads and directing the removal of sick trees.
In 1981 at the age of 67, he founded Citrus Grower Associates, Inc., a small cooperative of growers whose purpose is to promote and protect its members. As managing director of the organization, he wrote a weekly newsletter providing members with the latest news and information affecting Florida citrus.
Griffiths earned a reputation as an industry watchdog. He made it his business to be informed on every facet of the citrus business, from growing to processing to marketing. He was an expert on everything from citrus pests to international trade. He waded into the political arena and became a vocal advocate for Florida citrus in both Tallahassee and Washington. He fought for water rights for growers and the continued use of key pesticides. He served as a consultant and expert witness in lawsuits involving contamination of citrus groves by pollution from the phosphate industry. He testified before the FDA regarding standards of identity for processed orange juice products.
Griffiths lobbied for the establishment of the Polk County Water Policy Committee and served on it from 2001 to 2006. He worked on ad valorem greenbelt taxation with the Department of Revenue in an effort to standardize greenbelt assessments.
A wide array of industry groups and professional associations benefited from his leadership skills. Griffiths was a member of the International Society of Citriculture, the Soil Science Society of Florida, the Florida Entomological Society, the Entomological Society of America, Florida Citrus Production Managers Association, the Florida State Horticultural Society, the Institute of Food Technologists, and the Florida Farm Bureau.
Griffiths’ contributions to the citrus industry brought him a great deal of recognition, including the Citrus Achievement Award from Florida Growers magazine. He was inducted into the Florida Citrus Hall of Fame in 1998.
James Griffiths died on June 13, 2006, at the age of 91. He is survived by his two grown sons, Ken and Roger, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Richard Kelly
Richard Kelly has made it his lifelong mission to honor the agricultural wisdom of the past while training the industry’s future leaders. He began his career as a high school agriculture teacher, went on to head up the state FFA program, and became an important adviser to Florida Agriculture Commissioner Doyle Conner. But agriculture was more than a day job for Kelly. For almost 50 years he has poured his free time and his own money into improving agriculture education and preserving Florida’s unique agricultural history.
Born in Ocala in 1937, Kelly earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Florida in 1960 and a master’s degree in education in 1963. After graduation he worked as an agriculture teacher and FFA advisor at Santa Fe High School in Alachua. He later taught at Citrus High School in Inverness, where he developed a third-place state FFA parliamentary procedure team, a state FFA public speaker winner, and a state FFA president and vice-president.
From 1965 to 1969 he served at the Florida Department of Education in Tallahassee as executive secretary for the state FFA program. In this leadership position he worked to motivate, train, and equip agriculture educators across Florida. He developed a weeklong state convention for members and advisers, provided in-service training for teachers, and worked with the national organization to sponsor various educational activities for students. Even now Kelly continues to be involved with FFA as a volunteer. He helped found the Florida FFA Foundation and recently played an active role in securing a $50,000 grant to the Foundation to support teacher training.
From 1969 until his retirement in 1991, Kelly served as executive assistant to Commissioner Conner. He maintained liaison with the legislature and committee staff on a year-round basis and helped formulate the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ legislative programs and policies. He also coordinated statewide agricultural fair programs, served as the department’s liaison to UF-IFAS, and worked with the department’s division directors to form agricultural policy.
Kelly saw great success in his professional life and also in his efforts as a volunteer. For many years he has worked with the University of Florida’s Department of Agricultural Education and Communication to create and fund scholarships for agriculture students. Since 2002, funds have been generated for six new undergraduate scholarships totaling over $120,000.
Kelly has been active with Alpha Gamma Rho, the social and professional fraternity for agriculture students. He directed the work of the alumni association and education foundation at the University of Florida chapter. He also spent 12 years as vice president of the southeast region, visiting chapters in eight states and making sure academic standards were being met. He offered career counseling to fraternity members and helped them find internships and summer employment, and with every placement he showed the satisfaction of a proud parent.
Honoring the agricultural leaders of the past is as important to Kelly as training the leaders of the future. Kelly played a key role is establishing the Florida Agricultural Hall of Fame, and for 20 years he has served as the Hall of Fame’s historian as well as the organizer of its annual banquet.
In 2001 Kelly founded the Seasoned Owls group for former Florida agriculture teachers and organized its first annual reunion dinner. He has served as director and treasurer of the University of Florida Alumni Association and was the first executive director of UF’s College of Agriculture Alumni and Friends.
Kelly’s leadership in the agriculture industry has earned him numerous accolades, including FFA’s highest honor, the Honorary American Farmer Degree. In 1997 he received UF’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences Alumnus of Distinction Award, and in 2004 the Department of Agricultural Education and Communication honored him with the AEC Builder Award.
Richard Kelly and his wife, Nell, live in Tallahassee. They have three grown children, Lizette, Rick, and Bryce, three grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.

Kay Richardson
Kay Richardson is the president and general manager of Richardson Brothers, Inc., one of the top-performing cow-calf operations in Florida. He is known for the advances he has made in cattle production and for his marketing innovations. He is a strong supporter of cattle research at the University of Florida and has held many volunteer leadership positions in the agriculture industry.
Richardson was born in 1938 in Evinston, Florida. He grew up on his family’s farm, Richardson Brothers, Inc., which produced vegetables, field crops, and citrus. In 1960 he earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Florida. After completing his service in the Marines in 1964, he became an active partner in Richardson Brothers, which was in the process of shifting production to beef cattle and citrus.
Richardson became CEO of Richardson Brothers in the 1970s and quickly moved to improve cattle production in his operation. After the devastating freezes of 1985, Richardson Brothers sold off its citrus groves and made beef cattle its sole focus.
Over the years Richardson earned a reputation as a particularly innovative beef cattle manager. He has always used the most current available tools and programs to maintain a high-quality herd. An early member of the Florida Beef Cattle Improvement Association, he pioneered the use of production records to improve the productivity of his herd and improve the quality and weaning weights of his calves. Years of collecting birth and weaning weights and utilizing carcass evaluation records have resulted in the production of top-quality beef for the consumer. Richardson was instrumental in promoting the use of ultrasound for evaluation of carcass traits in breeding cattle. He supported the purchase of ultrasound equipment by the Florida Beef Cattle Improvement Association so that Florida producers would have access to this technology. Richardson Brothers continues to keep individual cow records and matches calves to their dam. While this practice has become commonplace in the purebred industry, Richardson Brothers is one of an elite group of commercial cattle producers using it.
Kay Richardson proved there are alternatives to selling cows at the auction barn at weaning. One such practice is retained ownership through the feeding phase. Richardson has sent his calves to various branded programs, including a natural program, B3R Meats, in which prices are paid on the basis of carcass merit. He was one of the first Florida producers to participate in the Decatur County Feedyard Program, which markets cattle individually as they reach their most desired finish point.
Richardson is always eager to share his knowledge with other producers. He generously offers up his ranch for use by the University of Florida so students can conduct research projects and professors can offer tours and hands-on short courses and classes. Professors of advanced beef cattle management courses often invite him to come to campus and discuss his management approach. When an agriculture group visits Florida, Richardson Brothers is a must-see. This is not because it is fancy or picturesque but because it is a state-of-the-art, productive operation. Richardson has been a helpful mentor to young people in the cattle business. He supports the Florida State Fair Steer Futurity Program and has provided cattle for many 4-H and FFA projects.
Richardson is a member of the Florida Farm Bureau, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Kansas Livestock Association, and the Texas Cattle Feeders Association. He has served as president of the Marion County Farm Bureau, the Florida Cattlemen’s Association, the Florida Beef Cattle Improvement Association, and Cattle Fax, a non-profit cattle-marketing information organization. In 2000 he was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board.
Richardson’s leadership in the cattle industry has earned him many honors. In 1969 he was named Outstanding Young Farmer by the Marion County/Ocala Jaycees. The Florida Bankers’ Association recognized him for Outstanding Beef Production in 1992, and Gamma Sigma Delta presented him with the Distinguished Service to Agriculture Award in 1997.
Kay Richardson and his wife, Rhoda, live in Evinston. They have two grown sons, Adam and Cary.

Mason Smoak
Third-generation citrus grower Mason Smoak accomplished an unbelievable amount in his short 33 years. He managed sprawling cattle ranches and citrus groves and lent his leadership skills to a long list of industry trade associations. He was involved in everything from agriculture education to conservation, and he embraced each new project with energy, optimism, and contagious enthusiasm.
Smoak was born in Avon Park, Florida, in 1974. He was raised in Lake Placid among his family’s citrus groves. Even as a child he was service-oriented and made giving an integral part of his life, but he was also competitive and driven to succeed. He earned a bachelor’s degree in food and resource economics from the University of Florida in 1997. After graduation he returned to Lake Placid to join his family’s citrus and cattle business.
The family’s holdings included over 13,000 acres of cattle ranchland and wildlife habitat in Highlands and Hardee counties and over 3,000 acres of citrus. In just a few years Smoak was helping his cousins manage and expand the business, diversifying into timber and horticulture. Today, Smoak Groves includes 1,250 acres of pine timber in Marion County and 270 acres of caladium bulbs in Hardee County.
Smoak was a natural leader. He was outgoing and hard working. He understood that the world is run by those who show up—and he did more than show up; he got deeply involved. A year after he graduated from college, he was elected to the Highlands County Farm Bureau board of directors. He later served as the organization’s president. He was a Florida Farm Bureau state director and chairman of the Florida Farm Bureau’s Young Farmer and Rancher Program. He was president of Highlands County Citrus Growers, chairman of the Heartland Agriculture Coalition, and a member of Florida Citrus Mutual’s Federal Political Action Committee. He was on the agriculture advisory committee at South Florida Community College and served as secretary of UF’s Alpha Gamma Rho Education Foundation. Smoak was such a respected advocate for the Florida citrus industry that he was invited to testify in front of the U.S. House of Representatives at a public hearing in October 2007 on the labor needs of American agriculture. In January 2008 CNN interviewed him in one of his family’s citrus groves on the issue of immigration reform.
Smoak was a member of the Leadership Highlands County Class of 2001 and graduated from UF’s Wedgworth Leadership Institute for Agriculture and Natural Resources. He was a founding board member of the Highlands County Ag-Venture program, which teaches kids about the importance of agriculture in their daily lives. He was also a hands-on volunteer with Ag-Venture, helping out with everything from fundraising and setup to cooking, teaching, and cleanup.
Smoak was a good steward of the land. He made great strides in water management and worked to establish conservation easements on his family’s ranches in order to protect wildlife. He worked closely with Dr. Dave Maehr, a well-known scientist at Archbold Biological Station, to conduct groundbreaking studies of the black bear population in Highlands County. Dr. Maehr’s research would have been impossible without Smoak’s support. The Smoak family provided Maehr with unlimited access to its large ranch in Venus, which contains prime bear habitat, including flatwoods, bayhead, and scrub. The ranch became the focal location to trap and collar black bears. Smoak also donated his services as a pilot—and his own airplane—so Maehr could conduct aerial surveys of the bears’ population. Smoak’s efforts helped raise the profile of black bears in Highlands County and Florida, revealed the habitats bears rely on, and documented the vast open spaces they need for survival.
Within a decade of finishing his degree, Smoak was chosen to receive the Horizon Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at UF in honor of his service, leadership, and contributions to agriculture. In 2007 the university named him an Outstanding Young Alumnus. Smoak’s work with the bears caught the attention of the Disney Conservation Fund, which presented him with its prestigious Conservation Hero Award in 2005.
Mason Smoak died on June 20, 2008. He is survived by his wife, Tracee, and three young children, Gabe, Landon, and Ellie.