Red Williams – agriculture’s Great Communicator

The words “Red Williams” and “ahead of his time” are most often uttered in the same breath.

That’s the highest of praise for an academic, a university professor, an ideas man, who has devoted 58 years to teaching and extension, working with students, producers and the general public.

He has trained hundreds of professional agrologists, has transferred new technology to thousands of producers, and has created an awareness of the importance of agriculture and food among urban audiences.

Williams’ irrepressible enthusiasm, pure physical energy and intellectual courage have kept this Second World War Navy veteran ploughing full steam ahead, despite official retirement in 1992.

His 25 years of radio commentaries and newspaper columns have inspired Saskatchewan producers to think differently about agriculture and food, and to explore new ways to profit from agricultural production and value-added food processing. His leadership role with Saskatchewan Agrivision Corporation Inc. sees him organizing conferences around these ideas, the most recent being Water: Droughtproofing the Economy. His charisma as a public speaker and ability to ignite audiences lead to invitations as a guest speaker. And he continues to mentor young agriculture students through teaching and supervising major papers for fourth-year undergrads.

In his spare time, Williams has lent his talents to the pursuit of pure politics, usually at the organizational and executive level provincially and nationally, but also as a candidate. While he may quietly rue three defeats at the polls, they may have proved propitious: elected office as a public servant may have interfered with Williams’ contribution to the people of Saskatchewan through his service as agriculture’s great communicator.
Dr. Charles Melville Williams – known as Red “because I had red hair when it had color” – is Professor Emeritus in the College of Agriculture’s Animal and Poultry Science Department at the University of Saskatchewan. Honoured recently for 50 years of teaching, 1954 to 2004, Williams credits his successes to his parents: both gave him good genes, he says, and his mother, a school teacher, instilled in him a desire for education.

Williams’ parents were farming at Richardson, Sask., about seven miles southeast of Regina, when he was born in Regina’s former Grace Hospital on March 18, 1925. The family subsequently farmed at Shamrock, Sask., and during the Depression years moved to a farm west of Calgary.

In 1942, at age 17, Williams joined the Navy, went overseas and was trained as an HF/DF or “huffduff” operator, a new technology at the time that used oscilloscopes for monitoring and tracking submarines.

Williams served on the HMCS Sioux, a fleet class destroyer, attached to the British Home Fleet. He was based at Scapa Flow in Scotland’s Orkney Islands and with the renowned Murmansk convoys running supplies to Russia. During the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944, Williams’ ship escorted the minesweepers in the English Channel, running first into Juno Beach for the Canadians and then into Omaha Beach for the Americans.

On discharge from the Navy, at age 21, Williams returned home to finish high school, then took advantage of the military’s educational provisions for veterans and attended the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) College of Agriculture, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture. After two years as a district agriculturalist, ag rep or extension agrologist in Kamloops, B.C., Williams returned to UBC for a Master of Science in Agriculture, then moved on to Oregon State University at Corvallis for a doctorate in another new and exciting field, genetics.

“When I graduated with the Ph.D. in 1954, I took the best job that was offered, which was at the University of Saskatchewan, and I’ve been here ever since,” Williams said. “There were two other professors in the Animal Husbandry Department when I came in: Milt Bell, who was a genius at research, and Bill Howell, who liked and did both research and extension work. I wasn’t much on research, so it was agreed amongst the three of us that I would carry the heavy load of extension.”

This suited Williams just fine. “I liked extension and teaching and working with farmers and young people. The University of Saskatchewan had a history of working with farmers; in fact, it was part of the university’s mandate. I will say, however, that I do like the great ideas that prompt research, and I loved research results, but I hate the time in between.”

Williams’ outgoing personality and his preference for extension ultimately led to his travelling across Saskatchewan, Canada and the world as a teacher and speaker. “I’ve been all over, except for the Middle East. I was in Hungary both before and after the Russians, and I was in Kenya during the coup, setting up mobile training schools for the nomadic peoples in the desert areas.”

And what is the value of working in agriculture?

“We are working with one of the industries that is absolutely essential and one that is now under pressure because it is being driven to adopt market rather than only production measures. Now, we’re into a completely different type of agriculture. Farmers have to be highly skilled, not only in production, but in all aspects of the business. For Saskatchewan to move ahead, we have to get into value-added systems and processing and further management of the product. Fundamentally, it means more water. Irrigation. We have a lot of water. The limitation is getting it around where it’s needed.”

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