On Tuesday Senator Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam) led the Senate in celebrating the career of Dr. R. James Cook, former dean of the WSU College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences and emeritus professor of plant pathology and crop and soil sciences.
Senate Resolution 8677 honors Dr. Cook for his “long and distinguished career at Washington State University, where he dedicated forty years to pursue cutting edge research in plant pathology and crop and soil science, revolutionizing how agriculture approaches crop productivity and disease management.”
Dr. James Cook stands for recognition in the Senate Chamber.
Senator Jim Hargrove and Dr. James Cook.
Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark joined the Senate in honoring Dr. Cook’s remarkable career. Commissioner Goldmark is a former member and past chair of the WSU Board of Regents.
Senator Jim Hargrove, Dr. James Cook and Commissioner Peter Goldmark.
After the formal adoption of SR 8677, Dr. Cook was joined by Commissioner Goldmark and Dr. Robert Edmonds, UW professor emeritus for environmental and forest sciences, in presenting the Washington State Academy of Sciences’ most recent publication to the Senate Natural Resources and Parks Committee. The report, in cooperation with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, identifies approaches and opportunities ripe for research on understanding and managing root diseases of Douglas-fir.
You can view their full presentation to the Committee below and find further coverage of Tuesday’s events in the Department of Natural Resources’ Ear to the Ground blog here.
A member of the Washington State Academy of Sciences’ inaugural class in 2008, Dr. Cook has also been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1993.
Retiring from WSU in 2005, Dr. Cook’s legacy at the university lives on. In 1998, the Washington Wheat Commission made a $1.5 million gift to the WSU Foundation to establish the R. James Cook Endowed Chair in Wheat Research, with Cook as the first holder of the chair. Additionally, WSU’s newest farm, the R. J. Cook Agronomy Farm, is named after and dedicated to Dr. Cook in celebration of his highly productive career in research and public service for agriculture and environmental sustainability.
For 33 of his 40 years at WSU, Cook was a U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Service scientist with the USDA-ARS Root Disease Biological Control Research Unit in Pullman. Dr. Cook’s awards and recognitions throughout his life are many. Upon receiving the prestigious Wolf Prize for Agriculture in 2011, WSU President Elson S. Floyd said, “This is truly an outstanding and well-deserved honor. Jim Cook is, without question, one of the finest research scientists in the history of our university, and this honor shows once again that he is held in equally high esteem by his peers around the world.”