Leroy Luft

Hall of Fame Class of 1996

While a County Extension Agent in Montana, Leroy Luft organized the first Interstate 4-H Exchange Program in the state. In 1977, he earned the Western Agricultural Economics Association's Outstanding Extension Program Award, served as chair of the Western Regional Farm Management Specialists, and was appointed the first coordinator of the Montana Kellogg Extension Education Project. He became Associate Director of the Montana Cooperative Extension Service and later Interim Director before assuming his current position as Director of the University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System and Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture. As such, he reestablished an annual conference, annual in-service training, the National Extension Honorary Society, Epsilon Sigma Phi, and encouraged further development of multi-county programming across the state.

He has served as Secretary and member of the Executive Committee of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges' Commission on Outreach and Technology Transfer. For the past five years, he has served on the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP), the national governing Board of Directors for the Cooperative Extension directors. He was also chair of the ECOP Budget Committee and was ECOP's 1996 chair.