UT Institute of Agriculture Presents Top Faculty and Staff Awards for 2024
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture celebrated the accomplishments of some of its top faculty, staff, researchers and Extension experts at UTIA’s annual awards and promotions luncheon. This year’s ceremony was held in the newly opened Agriculture and Natural Resources Building on the UTIA campus in Knoxville on August 14, 2024. Many of the awards are gifts made possible by faculty, alumni and friends of the Institute.
UT Institute of Agriculture Senior Vice Chancellor and Senior Vice President Keith Carver hosted the award winners and praised them for their work. “I continue to be amazed by the dedication, enthusiasm and expertise demonstrated by the impressive work of our UTIA faculty and staff,” says Carver. “The awards are well deserved, and the impacts of these accomplishments are seen across the state and will benefit Tennesseans for generations.”
Lee Rumble, an agriculture and natural resources agent for UT-TSU Extension Knox County, received the Ann and Bill Hicks Outstanding New Extension Worker Award. Established by UT Extension Dean Emeritus Bill Hicks and his wife, Ann, the award recognizes an outstanding employee with at least three years but not more than five years of service with UT Extension. The award recipient is selected by a committee that includes past winners of the Outstanding New Extension Worker Award and is presented each year to an Extension agent, area specialist, or specialist.
Rumble has been with UT-TSU Extension for four years and was promoted to Extension agent II in July. He is a member of the inaugural Tennessee Extension Leadership Academy cohort and won the Eastern Region Tennessee Association of Agricultural Agents and Specialists Early Career Award. His work focuses on commercial horticulture, and he is an International Society of Arboriculture Certified Arborist. You might find him climbing trees, helping homeowners with trees in their yards and discouraging people from damaging their trees with mulch piled up like a volcano around the trunk.
Rumble said he values the vast number of working relationships he has formed through Extension with like-minded people who all strive to help make Tennessee a better place to live, work and play. “In starting with Extension in January 2020, I feel confident in saying that I have found a role that fits me perfectly,” he said. “In my current position, not only am I able to educate others, but I am also able to continue to educate myself. For me, this is not a job, but instead my way of life—I do not just study arboriculture nowadays, it consumes my being and, as a result, has helped me to better apply and understand the concepts behind my chosen discipline, so that I am better prepared to help other Tennesseans. This award further solidifies those work efforts.”
Rumble earned an associate’s degree in ornamental horticulture at Nashville State Community College, and his bachelor’s degree in plant sciences and his master’s in biology and biological sciences at Middle Tennessee State University.
The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture is comprised of the Herbert College of Agriculture, UT College of Veterinary Medicine, UT AgResearch, and UT Extension. Through its land-grant mission of teaching, research and outreach, the Institute touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. to Tennesseans and beyond. utia.tennessee.edu.