BACKGROUND:            

            As a young child, I can remember playing in the barn of my grandpa’s dairy barn while my dad milked the 50 head of Holstein cows. My older brother and I would go and play in the hay loft whenever we got home from Apple Creek Elementary, which is where we both spent our kindergarten through sixth grade career. My junior high and high school experience took place in Kidron, Ohio at Central Christian High School. During the time between my junior and senior year, I became employed at the OARDC in Research Operations department. My role there was to be a laborer mixing and handling feed in a feed mill. I also worked at the feed mill the following summer. After high school I spent a semester at the University of Akron: Wayne College. I didn’t really know what I wanted to study so I took the next semester off and worked at a greenhouse where I then decided I wanted to pursuit a career in farming. The summer of 2002 brought me to the department of Horticulture and Crop Science here at the OARDC. I spent the next semester at a college in southwestern Oklahoma called Cameron University. I then decided that if I was going to study field crops, why not go to one of the best agricultural schools in the nation, which is just ten minutes driving distance from where I live? So, after one semester at Cameron, I moved back home and started attending Ohio State University: Agricultural Technical Institute where I plan on graduating from this summer with an Associate’s of Applied Science in Crop Management. After graduating, I am to be married as of August first and we will be moving to Clearfield Pennsylvania where my future wife will be attending Physician Assistant’s school at Lock Haven University. I have learned many things during my stay here in Horticulture and Crop Science and will carry that knowledge with me and apply it to my future as a farmer.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Wszelaki, A.L., S.D. Walker, C.P. Steiner and S.A. Miller 2003. Evaluation of alternatives for the control of foliar and fruit diseases of organic processing tomatoes, 2002. Biological and Cultural Tests for Control of Plant Diseases (online). Report 18:PT008. DOI:10.1094/BC18. The American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN.

Wszelaki, A.L., T.J. Butler, C.P. Steiner, E.A. Burnison and S.A. Miller 2004. Evaluation of approved materials for the control of foliar and fruit diseases of organic fresh-market tomatoes, 2003. Biological and Cultural Tests for Control of Plant Diseases (online) (in press). The American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN.