A love story that started in the dish room of a Macomb staple in the 1980s has blossomed over time and has now led to the creation of a new endowed scholarship in support of For The W: The Campaign for Western Illinois University.
The Western Illinois University School of Agriculture will host its fourth annual IPREFER Pennycress Field Day from 10 a.m.-noon Thursday, May 25 at the Agriculture Field Laboratory on Tower Road in Macomb.
It wasn t the strange looks they got for intentionally damaging their corn crop, or the hundreds of pounds of ice they had to haul to campus to hurl at their corn plants – it was the industry-changing research that resulted that brought two Western Illinois University Emeritus Agriculture faculty members acclaim for creating more accurate hail damage tables for the insurance industry; tables which are still used today.