Root Savior

Have you got the date saved for this year’s CTAHR Awards Banquet? If not, now’s the time to note it down in your calendar: it’s on Friday, May 4, and the celebration will be back in the Hibiscus Ballroom at the Ala Moana Hotel. One of the illustrious members of the CTAHR ‘ohana to be honored that evening will be noted nematologist Gerald S. Santo, who has been named the Outstanding Alumnus for 2018. Brought up in Kapoho on the Big Island, he earned his BS in tropical agriculture and MS in plant pathology at CTAHR before completing a PhD in plant pathology-nematology at the University of California at Davis. As a Washington State University professor and plant pathologist/nematologist, he saved Pacific Northwest farmers millions of dollars through use of cultural practices and nematicides to control specific nematode infestations in the soil, resulting in improved crop yields in potatoes and other crops. Come to the Banquet to cheer him and the other honorees! Registration opens later in the spring.